Greening the City, One Project At a Time
Posted in Adult Education on May 1 2015, by Plant Talk
The April issue of Elle Décor magazine features the work of Susan Welti (’96), who runs her Brooklyn-based Foras Studio with NYBG School of Professional Horticulture alum, Paige Keck. A former dancer, Welti now finds a different sort of choreography in gardens and landscapes. We caught up with her to talk about design, careers, and the personal satisfaction that comes from actually changing clients’ lives.
‘For me, Landscape Design is the perfect segue from choreography,” Susan said. “It has space, time, and movement.”
Her Landscape Design classes at the Garden—which she said were “beyond fun”—were humbling and prepared her for an internship with Lynden B. Miller after she completed her Certificate in 1996. She opened her own company, Susan Welti Landscape Design, and started small, but grew rapidly as news of her talent spread.
“I think it’s an amazing field to be in because people here are just desperate to have green, some little bit of nature,” she said. “It sounds counter-intuitive that you could have a really booming landscape design business in the middle of New York City, but it’s true.”
After a few years, Susan hired regular part-time help, Paige Keck, a graduate of the Garden’s School of Professional Horticulture. She came on full-time a couple years later and eventually became a partner.
In 2009, in the middle of the recession, Susan and Paige formed Foras Studio, LLC. They work in Brooklyn and Manhattan, primarily on residential projects they get through word-of-mouth, via readers of popular publications, and those who stumble across their website. Several architects also contract with them to help with landscape designs on residential projects.
Foras’ work tends to be more modern, walking the line between preserving the traditional details in the vintage brownstones and interjecting a more minimalist sensibility.
“It’s a challenge to figure out really where the right place to be on that continuum is,” Susan said.
A current project in Brooklyn encapsulates the dichotomy perfectly. It’s actually five properties, strung together in a very odd shape, with a huge brownstone in the process of being renovated. Its existing garden features a “peculiar sort of formal gazebo-pergola building.” And despite the land being rather plain, Susan faces a challenge.
“I have to marry the oddities of the house and the formality of it with a little bit looser approach just by virtue of the size,” she said. “I have to figure out how to deal with that much space.”
Usually, projects in the city tend to be on a much smaller scale. One of Susan’s favorites—the one featured in Elle Décor—is a more serene, minimal garden.
“The clients came right out and said, ‘This garden changed our lives,’” Susan said. “When do you ever hear that? That was really amazing.”
But Susan knows landscape designers need to be able to tackle the ever-changing challenges of each particular site.
“You have to be ready to change, absorb, and digest, and go to another place as a designer,” she advised.
One tactic of utmost importance that helps her stay consistent in her design is keeping it simple.
“Don’t overrun a space with too many elements or plant varieties just because you can,” she said. She advises designers to find out the most important aspect of the project, and focus on it.
“Good design comes from love and joy—loving the process and feeling real joy in it,” she said. “That’s the state I want to stay in, in order to do my best work.”
Are you an aspiring landscape designer? Take the plunge and start on your Certificate at the Garden’s five-week Summer Intensive starting July 13.
