Frameworks for Connection: SCAPE's Managing Principal Alexis C. Landes on Thinking Strategically, Building a Network, and Relying on Intuition
Alexis by Yasya Fogelgardt.
By Julia Gamolina
Alexis C. Landes is a landscape designer, urban planner, and Managing Principal at SCAPE, where she has overseen the firm’s expansion from 12 to 90 staff members within the past eight years. Within SCAPE, she plays a critical role overseeing firm-wide operations, strategy, project management, business development and finances.
She has also served as Principal-in-Charge of several portfolio-defining projects such as the Resilient Boston Harbor Vision. Externally, she manages client relationships and firm partnerships, developing tailored design solutions, teams and strategies to meet ever-changing needs. Alexis has taught professional practice courses and presented nationally at numerous conferences discussing collaborative approaches to business management and firm building. In her interview, Alexis talks about her focus on strategy, the dance of external and internal forces within a practice, and building a collective, advising those just starting their careers to commit and persevere.
Tell me about your foundational years - where did you grow up and what did you like to do as a kid?
I grew up in Boston, Massachusetts in a very close-knit family. My parents were married for forty-three years until my mother died of cancer. Fuck cancer. My mom was a very influential role model for me—especially in my career; she was a successful lawyer at the time when there were few women lawyers and even fewer women lawyers also raising kids. But my mom figured out a rhythm and support system to do both. I admired that about her. She instilled in me the drive to dream big and work hard to get there.
My love of nature came from both sides of our family. My mom grew up on a family-owned chicken farm in southern New Hampshire. My dad loved the ocean, spending summers on Nantasket Beach at my paternal grandparents’ beach bungalow. Both gave me a sense of awe for the natural world and an interest in working on and with the land. As kids, my brother and I spent time exploring the woods behind the municipal golf course across from our house; taking long walks with our dog; hunting for lost golf balls; and exploring the wooded fringes of metro Boston.
As Principal-in-Charge, Alexis oversaw the Resilient Boston Harbor Vision—a harbor-wide climate adaptation and open space strategy for the City of Boston. Image courtesy of SCAPE.
What did you learn about yourself in studying landscape architecture?
My interest in landscape architecture stemmed from my arts education at Oberlin, where I studied the land art movement and made art myself. In school, I learned to work hard, present my work, and test my ideas. I also learned a ‘systems thinking’ approach to design. In terms of advancement, I learned that creating a professional network would be critical to success.
More significantly, I learned that I wasn’t going to get everything I needed in school. I knew I’d have to teach myself a lot more to master the ‘choreography of practice’—the people, processes and publics that determine how a firm or organization is run. I think about this as all the interconnected stuff that makes a practice work: project management, client management, team building, finances, pursuits, pipelines, deliverables, scopes, meetings. The dance between inputs and outputs is what really makes firms and people successful.
How did you get your start in the field?
One of my first jobs out of college was working as a studio assistant at MVVA’s office in New York. Tasks ranged from building Brooklyn Bridge Park models and assembling RFP responses to assisting Anita Berrizbeitia on Michael Van Valkenburgh’s 2009 monograph “Reconstructing Urban Landscapes.” During this formative time, I fell in love with landscape architecture and the power of designing the built environment—but I also learned about collaboration and the mechanics of a design studio. To this day, I rely on skills I learned as a studio assistant in my current role at SCAPE. I also understand how formative that was for me and aim to bring young, dynamic people into the office – training the next generation is deeply rewarding.
I’ve worked at a wide range of design firms since graduating from Oberlin. In my early career and during graduate school, I worked at Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates (MVVA). After graduating from Harvard, I went to work at Sasaki. I finally found my home at SCAPE, where I’ve been for over eight years. Each experience has built upon the next, shaping my perception and expertise in practice and management. Then shortly after graduating from Harvard GSD, I was given the opportunity to craft a professional practice seminar at RISD. This was a wonderful opportunity for me to articulate the shortfalls I experienced, providing a platform to ready students for careers in the field. I focused the course on principles of practice as I saw them: researching, building, operating, engaging, programming and sustaining.
“Strategy is really about creating frameworks for connection—connecting firm-wide systems, from business development to project management; linking teams and processes; creating feedback loops. It’s more than a single design solution or intervention. Good strategy informs both internal and external forces.”
Tell me how your work evolved, and you with it. How did the focus on strategy come about, and how did you grown your career in this vein?
I first saw how powerful strategic thinking can be at Sasaki. I had an opportunity to pitch and develop a research project called Urban Fabric, with the goal of repositioning the firm and building a fresh narrative during and after the financial recession of 2008. That project’s success led to new relationships and business connections. Internally, it created a way for designers to work beyond billable hours and client-determined scopes.
Strategy is really about creating frameworks for connection—connecting firm-wide systems, from business development to project management; linking teams and processes; creating feedback loops. It’s more than a single design solution or intervention. Good strategy informs both internal and external forces.
How did you eventually get to SCAPE?
In 2013, I left Sasaki and moved to New York in support of my husband’s career opportunities. I used the change to look for a way to scale up this strategic approach. That winter, I sent Kate Orff my resume and asked for an informational meeting over coffee.
We talked about my interests, my skills and what she was looking for at SCAPE. I started with a single strategic effort: helping advance Toward an Urban Ecology, a monograph dedicated to our unique approach and methodology. I quickly realized this one-off opportunity could help shape the firm’s story in a more continuous way. I made it my job to help shape this studio into a robust practice—a firm equipped to deliver design excellence, handle complexity and organize for uncertainty.
Alexis with members of the Marketing, Operations and Management teams at SCAPE. Photo courtesy of SCAPE and Yasya Fogelgardt.
Where are you in your career today?
With the help of my partners and a strong leadership team, I’m running a nearly 90-person firm of landscape architects, urban planners, urban designers and horticulturalists. As Managing Principal at SCAPE, I oversee our operations team, marketing and business development team, and financial team. Every day, I support our project managers with management strategies—and continue to run a series of projects as Principal-in-Charge.
Today, we’re constantly balancing our business with strategic thinking. A recent example is our roll out of a ‘pod’ system during the height of COVID. Pods were weekly virtual meetings led by Senior Associates to disseminate information and get feedback about various prompts and firm updates — like return to office and retreat planning —and an informal way for staff to socialize and talk about life and work during COVID. With everyone under increased stress and working remotely, focusing on the well-being of staff was a top priority. This framework carried us through the pandemic.
My success is not about unique skills related to business management. In fact, I’ve struggled with numbers and letters my whole life. I rely on perseverance and intuition, my commitment to a team approach, my belief in building up other people around me—making them successful. The choreography of practice has taught me the success of our company is the success of our people.
What is on your mind most at the moment?
Growth is on my mind! Managing, supporting, innovating and evolving around our rapid growth is at the center of everything I do at SCAPE today. For a point of reference, we grew over 30% during the pandemic to date. Growth means an increase in staff, but it also means an increase in project complexity, an increase in office locations and supporting operations.
As Managing Principal, I’m focused on staying one step ahead of our new fronter. I’ve assembled a management team out of key members of the office. We work closely to develop new systems and strategies to support growth while maintaining what is unique to our practice. I believe in constantly workshopping our practice; thinking about ways we can improve and innovate.
“I’m real with SCAPE that I have two kids that need me every day. I’m also real with my kids that I have a big job and need to support a lot of people at work. My boundaries are fluid...Because this is ongoing and evolving, I’ve resigned myself to the fact that it’s not a challenge to ‘get through’—it’s a constant in my life.”
Looking back at it all, what have been the biggest challenges? How did you manage through a disappointment or a perceived setback?
The number one biggest challenge for me is balancing my career and family. This challenge is hard to quantify or explain. I know it’s not unique to me. I need to both be 100% present and available for my staff—and, at the same time, for my two kids and husband. This balancing act is a constant work-in-progress. I feel like I’m standing on a seesaw, shifting my weight from side to side depending on the time of day or task on my plate.
I’ve talked to many working mothers and fathers over the years and all have echoed how challenging it is to do this well. Everyone has their own approach to making the seesaw work. I’ve taken the approach of not segmenting these worlds. I’m real with SCAPE that I have two kids that need me every day. I’m also real with my kids that I have a big job and need to support a lot of people at work. My boundaries are fluid. It forces me to be highly efficient with my time at work and delegate to my team as much as possible. It also forces me to rely on my team at home and flexible husband who, at times, has to bike a kid through Brooklyn to make art class or soccer practice happen. Because this is ongoing and evolving, I’ve resigned myself to the fact that it’s not a challenge to ‘get through’—it’s a constant in my life.
What are you most excited about right now?
I’m so excited and proud of SCAPE. We have built—are actively building—a truly unique and groundbreaking practice. Despite trying to find precedents or structures to guide me or influence the decisions I’m making, I often come up short. We run the firm as a collective, primarily by women leaders. This is different from the traditional practice, where each principal effectively runs their own studio. The SCAPE model depends on teamwork. Each principal has a unique set of skills and responsibilities that interconnect, strengthen and support each other.
My next challenge is trying to build off this collaborative leadership approach to influence all tiers and teams in the office, building out a second tier of design leadership and management.
Who are you admiring now and why?
Judy Nitsch! Judy has been a fan and collaborator of SCAPE for several years—the founder and former president of Nitsch Engineering, a dynamic woman owned engineering firm based in Boston. Judy has been a real role model for me with her commitment to excellence and her belief in paying it forward through mentorship and empowering her teams. She has a clear civic presence and is interested in elevating woman leaders throughout the AEC industry.
I love talking with Judy about firm structure, business development and growth models. She’s at a place in her career where she wants to share her knowledge. She’s a uniquely generous person. I hope to be able to replicate this later in my career and perpetuate the cycle of supporting woman leaders.
Alexis and her two children, Isaac and Zoe, walk through the entrance plaza at Greenpoint Library and Environmental Education Center in Brooklyn.
What is the impact you’d like to have in the world? What is your core mission? And, what does success in that look like to you?
I want to continue to build an outstanding practice where our teams prosper and our clients feel heard. I also want to advocate for the SCAPE approach more broadly in the industry, helping other teams grow.
The state of the world demands a new approach to leadership and collaboration. Kate saw early on that old single-headed firm model limits growth and dynamism not adequate to tackle today’s challenges. A new paradigm is needed. We are charting that course.
For me, success would be continuing to grow our team at SCAPE and pushing for a shift in the industry to share our approach to practice. I really believe this approach has the potential to unlock landscape architecture as a force for meaningful and positive change in the world and in the communities where we work.
Finally, what advice do you have for those starting their career? Would your advice be any different for women?
Join a team with a mission you believe in. Your professional success will benefit from pushing to accomplish more than great design. With that, be collaborative. Value the people you work with. Support them and they will support you.
Then, commit to doing good in the communities you serve. Commit to delivering for your clients and for the broader community you’re impacting. Commit to listening. Commit to making positive change through your design or through your project approach. Sometimes the biggest impact you can have is through the process. Empower others to think big and do good work.
Finally, don’t give up. It can get hard. Admit you are a work in progress and trying your best at juggling opportunities and constraints simultaneously.
And I have special advice for women. Seek out women leaders who are committed to promoting and supporting women in leadership positions. We are out there and we want to bring you along with us.