EDUCATION
University of London – Queen Mary
2011 – 2016
Doctoral research in the Departments of Cultural Geography and History: Part-time doctoral research to begin January 2011, to be completed by 2016. Thesis topic: The landscape projects of the progressistes in the three decades before the Revolution. Thesis supervisors: Professors Miles Ogborn & Colin Jones.
Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Versailles
2008 – 2009
Masters in the care & conservation of historic gardens, parks and landscapes. (Master 2 : Des Jardins Historiques, Patrimoine et Paysage)
University of California, Berkeley – the College of Environmental Design
2001 - 2004
Masters in landscape architecture, with additional studies in urban design and ecological restoration.
New York University – The Gallatin School,
1997 - 2000
Bachelor’s of the Arts, concentration in Architectural History and urbanism. Colloquium thesis : Wilderness and Terrains Vagues in Representations of the Modern City.
PROFESSIONAL POSITIONS
Sciences Po – Lecturer
10/10 –
- Lecturer in English for urban planning in the masters in Urbanism programme.
Private Practice in landscape architecture and the planning, conservation & Interpretation of historic sites
09/09 –
- Realisation of a guide book, in cooperation with the Château of La Roche-Guyon to the Promenades of the duchesse d’Enville to be published in early 2011 by the Editions de l’Amandier.
- Design and planning services for a private developer on the adaptive re-use of a Second Empire estate on the outskirts of Paris.
Michel Desvigne Paysagiste – Draughtsman
10/06 - 07/07
- L’Ancien Hôpital Militaire, Anvers : Open space master-planning and design services for the re-development of this historic military hospital as a residential community.
- Bishopsgate Development, London : Design of public open spaces for this mixed-use tower develpment in the Spittalfieds district.
- Conglomeration de Cergy-Pontoise : Open space and development master planning for this 1970’s era new city on the outskirts of Paris.
- Île Seguin, Boulogne-Billancourt : Design development for the re-development of this former industrial island in the Seine.
Hargreaves Associates, New York – Associate / Senior Associate
09/04 - 08/06
- Coney Island, New York, NY : Master-planning, public open-space and streetscape design services undertaken for the City New York and the Empire State Development Corporation.
- University of Vermont, Burlington, VT: Campus Master planning services.
Office of the Landscape Architect, University of California, Berkeley -- Associate
06/02 - 11/03
- Campus Master Plan, Research, writing and graphic preparation for the
- Best Management Practices for campus creek and natural areas.
The Skyscraper Museum, NY NY
04/00 - 06/01
- Writing and research for a web-based history of Manhattan skyscrapers.
- Development work for this nascent New York museum.
Biographical Statement
The past holds such a powerful sway over my work and my perception of the present. I feel that this must be at least partly due to my having spent much of my childhood in a city that had been severely bombed, and then very minimally re-built. That city is Exeter, in the Devon in the Southwest of England. Growing up in a city whose present form is so dull, but whose past form, even within the living memory of my parents and grandparents, was so rich, unconsciously pushes you to re-imagine your surroundings as they were before. Growing up with this very vivid presence of the past, as a sort of intangible overlay to the present, deeply influences the manner in which I come to understand the cities that I live in, and the projects that I work on.
My choice of landscape architecture as a profession was driven by my childhood in Philadelphia and New York, two great American cities that were built around armatures of great 19th century landscape parks. I did my professional studies in Northern California, where the history of urban settlement is recent, but where the memory of the pre-settlement landscape exerts just as powerful an influence on collective culture as all the accumulated historical baggage of older American and European cities.
I started my professional life in planning projects for universities and urban neighborhoods. While this felt like a detour from my real interest in the finer grain projects in landscape conservation, it gave me a sense of the vitality of institutions and the adaptability that landscape conservation projects require when they are carried out in the context of a living and dynamic institution. I moved to France in 2006 to work on urban and parks projects in the much denser context of European cities. The landscape conservation programme at Versailles allowed me to further focus my professional orientation towards the conservation of landscape and historic sites.
I started my own small practice to allow myself to focus entirely on the conservation and interpretation of historic sites. The scope of the projects, and especially their budgets, is small, but the work is utterly fascinating to me. This type of work has also allowed me to focus much more on developing my skills at hand-drawing and draughtsmanship, and to collaborate with a clientelle that shares my fascination for the landscape history and the present life of the designed past.