Lan is a Senior Associate at Sasaki, practicing both domestically and internationally, who offers creative insights into park and urban space design across multiple scales. She brings expertise integrating equity and sustainability into public space, transforming a master plan vision into built space, and advocating for long-term socio-ecological opportunities.
With a cross-disciplinary background in architecture, urban design, and landscape architecture, Lan brings a wide lens to landscape solutions, tackling the complexity of urban projects grounded in each unique social and natural context. Passionate about climate resilience and community engagement, she believes that design is a powerful tool for enhancing the success of a city and people’s everyday lives.
Courtesy of Sasaki
Lan’s park practice includes Greenwood Community Park in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Ellinikon Park in Athens, Greece, both of which won ASLA National Awards. More recently, Lan has managed and served as the design lead for the Santa Monica Airport Conversion Project, a bold transformation of an airport into a vibrant urban park; University Lakes in Baton Rouge, a shoreline restoration that reconnects people with nature; and Madison Lakeway, a downtown waterfront park that celebrates Madison’s rich relationship with water and culture. Lan also co-led Climate.Park.Change, a Sasaki research project focused on climate resilience in park design. Her work centers on creating inclusive, lively public spaces—and bringing raw ideas to life in close collaboration with the communities they serve.
WLA | What was your path to becoming a landscape architect?
I was naturally drawn to landscape, but I wasn’t fully aware of it until my second year studying architecture and landscape architecture at the University of Pennsylvania. One night, I was walking through Rittenhouse Square—a vibrant urban park with lawns, big trees, and benches in downtown Philadelphia. I felt completely relaxed by the sound of birds, the feeling of the breeze, and the smell of leaves and grass. The design of the square, originally planned by William Penn, was actually quite simple, but I realized it had served the city for hundreds of years, bringing the beauty of nature into the urban environment and creating a moment of peace just steps away from the busy street. Unlike architecture, parks weren’t designed for a specific group of users—they’re open to everyone. From office workers to students, from 2 months old to 99 years old, people of all races and all ages can find a place here. This inclusiveness brings dynamic use to a simple space, giving it longevity, a unique identity, and most importantly, the power to bring the community together.
At that moment, I told myself: I want to be a landscape architect. I want to create meaningful spaces that are accessible to everyone, connected to nature, and loved by the people who use them. I don’t want to design spaces that are just trendy or made for Instagram—I want to design places that last, and that people will use for decades. Now, after eight years at Sasaki, I’m glad that I still hold onto that initial moment—and that I’m continuing to work toward that goal in my practice.
WLA | What is your approach to landscape design?
I believe good design should always grow from its context. When I first joined Sasaki, Joe Hibbard—now Principal Emeritus—shared a metaphor that has stayed with me: landscape design is like crossing a river. You need to understand how wide and how fast the river flows before deciding the best way to get across. For each project, that “river” is different. It’s something we discover through holistic site analysis—across ecology, culture, connectivity, hydrology, and social elements—along with the touch and feel of the site, the city, and conversations with the people connected to it.
As my advocate Anna Cawrse often says, “the best design comes from listening and being flexible.” I’ve found that to be especially true. For complex park projects, it means listening to many voices and balancing community priorities with technical constraints and implementation realities. Being inclusive, spontaneous, and humble in that listening process helps us chart a path that leads to the project’s ultimate goals.
One part of the process I really enjoy is sketching. I see the context—site, clients, stakeholders, communities—as nourishment for the tree of creation. Our designer’s pen helps identify the critical issues through lines and curves, and the act of shaping forms brings endless possibilities to a place. In the Capitol Mall Design Framework project in Saint Paul, Minnesota, we hosted a four-day design charrette with over 80 stakeholders envisioning the Capitol Area together. Hundreds of ideas were synthesized into one sketch in a single day—it became a powerful communication tool to amplify diverse voices, while still leaving space for continued conversation.
To me, the design process changes with every project—but the heart of it remains the same: stay rooted in context, listen deeply, and let the design grow from there.
WLA | What is the most rewarding part of being a landscape architect?
The fact that I can help the community bring the beautiful vision into reality is always so rewarding. This is not always about the final product, but rather a process. For the Madison Lakeway project, we started from listening to all voices before we started design, and we gained the community’s trust throughout the process. We got a record-breaking 2,400 responses from the community in the end, praising our overall design directions and this strong community support helped move the project quickly into phase 1 implementation.
Sometimes this reward is simply seeing people smile. A few months ago, we attended the grand opening of Greenwood Community Park Phase 1 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana – a project I worked on for 7 years from the Master Plan to Phase 1 construction set. In the adventure playground – that I had spent a lot of nights drawing details – I teared up a little seeing the kids screaming happily when they slid down from the Louisiana Black Bear playset, running on the weaving path or jumping on the stepping stones. I heard them shouting “this is the coolest place” to each other. My 1.5 year old son was also among those kids, trying to climb a concrete stool that is specifically designed for toddlers. Standing there, I realized so many kids like them will grow up using this park, playing at the signature playground, watching the birds nesting in the restored bayou habitat, or simply enjoying a family moment. Design is a long journey, but if it is done right, it could be impactful for generations.
WLA | What does your day as a landscape architect look like?
A day for me as a landscape architect at Sasaki really depends on where we are in a project—but it’s all about collaboration. Whether it’s working closely with the Denver and Los Angeles office on projects like the Santa Monica Airport Conversion or coordinating with both the New York and Denver teams on University Lakes, there’s a strong interdisciplinary and inter-office culture here. I’m regularly working side-by-side with planners, urban designers, civil engineers, architects and even software engineers in our Strategy team. Early on in a project, we’re diving into site analysis and collaborating with the Strategy team using tools like viewshed and thermal comfort analysis to better understand the site. In the concept phase, we often hold fast-paced sketch work sessions, mixing in-person and virtual formats to spark ideas across disciplines and offices. As we move into design development and construction administration, the focus shifts to grading, materials, details and all sorts of technical coordination. I also travel frequently for site visits, workshops, engagement events, university lectures, and conferences, which helps me stay connected to the site and its communities, engage with fresh perspectives, and bring new energy and ideas back into my daily practice. Every day brings something new—which keeps things both challenging and fun.
WLA | What is a key issue that is facing the landscape architecture profession?
One key issue facing the landscape architecture profession today is climate change. Each year continues to break records as the hottest in history, and that urgency is something we can’t ignore. I’ve developed a strong interest in climate resilience through my practice—because we’re not just designing parks and open spaces for the next ten years, we’re designing for decades, even centuries. That means our work needs to respond to shifting ecological zones, increasing extreme weather events, flooding, and heat—all of which are becoming more and more frequent.
Through the Sasaki Research Grant and in collaboration with NRPA (National Recreation & Park Association), Anna and I led Climate.Park.Change, an interactive platform designed to help us and park professionals identify the specific climate challenges their parks are facing, along with high-level adaptation strategies. This year, we’re continuing our partnership with NRPA to expand the tool—incorporating insights from Carbon Conscience, another Sasaki initiative led by Chris Hardy. We’re developing a new Carbon Module to help raise awareness and provide accessible guidance for low-carbon design approaches. It’s an ongoing effort to make climate action a core part of how we think, design, and build in this profession.
Thank you to Lan for taking the time to answer our questions for this profile during World Landscape Architecture Month.