Dept. is a landscape architecture and urban design studio that provides creative, useful, and adaptive design responses for the public and the environment. Founded by Maggie Tsang and Isaac Stein, Dept. is based in Houston, but serves the Gulf Coast, the Southeast, and beyond. 

We believe that the best design is informed by its social and ecological context. Through thoughtful design and planning, we strive to serve communities through ecologically sensitive and adaptive projects. Our design work balances creativity and pragmatism as we work with our clients and partners to produce  visions for the future that are equally informed by implementation.

"Garden Ecologies: Environmental Transformation and Care" is a two-day symposium hosted by Rice School of Architecture and the John Fairey Garden Conservation Foundation on urban ecology, landscape practice and management, and climate adaptation.

The symposium will provide a critical perspective on gardens, not simply as private retreats, but also as trans-scalar spaces that can engage issues of urban expansion, environmental transformation, and climate change. Garden Ecologies will expand on traditional notions of the garden and gardening through three areas of focus: garden history, landscape design practice, and land management. Through these topics, the symposium will reflect on the garden as a test bed for novel ecological entanglements and as a medium for exploring contemporary topics such as settler colonial histories, labor, domesticity, industrialization, ecological conservation and restoration, and models for intervention, stewardship, and practice.

Taking place in the epicenter of the Gulf Coast region—where extraction and ecology collide—this symposium invites discussion from both academia and practice on the garden as a potential space of environmental transformation and care. 

Garden Ecologies: Environmental Transformation and Care is organized by Maggie Tsang, assistant professor at Rice University, with Randy Twaddle, executive director at the John Fairey Garden Conservation Foundation in Hempstead, Texas, in partnership with Rice Architecture, Rice Center for Environmental Studies, and Rice Office for Research.

November 2023

 to record the changing dyanmics of the garden and to share information about community work days and volunteer events. In October, Dept. worked with Rice Grounds to mulch the plots and manage the overgrowth of ragweed. Keep track of the progress and more 

October 2023

 at Rice University's Prairie Plots with City of Houston Fire Department, Texas Parks and Wildlife, and the Rice University Crisis Management Team.

Maggie Tsang participates in RISD Architecture's 

, organized by Assistant Professor Amelyn Ng, with participants Paolo Tavares and Gabriel Cuellar.

Maggie Tsang and Isaac Stein deliver a guest lecture at 

, which inaugurated its first class of landscape architecture degree candidates. The guest lecture, called "Tending," was delivered for Mariel Collard's second semester landscape studio, Land Studio II: Shore.

Dept. kicks off Schematic Design with SWA for Buffalo Bayou Partnership's South Bank Trail.

March 2023

Dept. joins SWA in kicking-off a new phase of work for the South Bank Trail at Buffalo Bayou East.

December 2022

: one for Design Excellence and one for Environmental Sustainability

August 2022

Dept. will deliver a lecture as part of the Arch League 2022 League Prize alongside Jose Amozuruttia and Carlos Facio of TO, followed by a discussion moderated by Luis Beltrán del Río García. 

 newest resource in the Adaptation Clearinghouse called: 

Solomon Square Plaza finishes construction in Seaside, FL.

Dept.'s Arch League Prize Online Exhibition titled 

June 2022

Dept. is one of six emerging firms to be awarded the 

 from The Architectural League of New York. 

 at Rice University. Read more from Rice University 

May 2022

Maggie Tsang will be the Lead Principal Investigator for an interdisciplinary research project called 

"Community Oriented Stormwater Infrastructure"

 with Prof. Philip Bedient, Director of the SSPEED Center, and Prof. Liz Roberto, Dept. of Sociology at Rice University. The year-long project will investigate neighborhood-based design scenarios for flooding in Houston. The project is funded by Rice University's Sustainable Futures Fund.

February 2022

 in Seaside, FL completes construction and opens to the public.

October 2021

 with her senior urbanism studio called "Middle Ground: Urbanism in Reverse on Brays Bayou."

August 2021

4900 Travis Street, Suite 201, Houston, TX 77002

Maggie Tsang is an architect and urbanist. She has expertise across multiple disciplines including architecture, urban design, and planning. Her diversity of experience makes her adept at designing at a range of scales and navigating complex projects with multiple stakeholders. She is Assistant Professor at Rice School of Architecture where her teaching and research focuses on issues of climate adaptation, floodplain urbanism, community resilience, and the relationship between city and nature.

Prior to founding Dept., she worked as an urban designer and planner at Utile in Boston, MA where she managed a variety of projects including zoning codes, streetscape design, development test-fits, comprehensive plans, neighborhood plans, and public space activation. Previously, she also worked as design lead at WORK Architecture Company in New York where she led several public projects, including two school additions for Edible Schoolyard and the New York School Construction Authority.

Maggie received her Bachelor of Arts and Master of Architecture from Yale University, and she also holds a Master of Design Studies in Urbanism, Landscape, and Ecology from Harvard Graduate School of Design. Maggie is a registered architect in Maryland and Texas.

Managing Principal, Co-Founder

Isaac Stein is a landscape architect and architect from the Florida Panhandle. He has expertise in the design and construction of complex open space and infrastructure projects, including large public parks. His hands-on experience with large-scale site contracting, earth work, and utilities coordination gives him a deep understanding of implementation and constructability.

In addition, he has presented his research on coastal flooding and sea level rise to the ASLA, University of Miami, and American Water Resources Conference. His mitigation and adaptation work in has also been published in the Miami Herald, Vanity Fair, and Next City. Prior to founding Dept., Isaac was a design lead at West 8 Landscape and Urban Design in New York and Rotterdam where he worked on a range of projects including North Shore Open Space Park and the Miami Beach Convention Center.

Isaac received his Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Miami where he was awarded the AIA Alpha Ro Chi Medal. He also holds a Master of Landscape Architecture and Master of Design Studies in Risk and Resilience from Harvard Graduate School of Design where he received the ASLA Certificate of Merit. He is also a member of the ASLA Climate Action Group. Isaac is a registered landscape architect in Florida, Maryland, and Texas.

Design Principal, Co-Founder

McKenna Mitchell is an Associate at Dept. Her current projects in the office include Windsor North Village and the Silos Stormwater Park with Buffalo Bayou Partnership. She has experience in private landscape management, restoration, and garden design, as well as in large scale public sector projects. 

Prior to joining Dept., McKenna was an associate at PWP Landscape Architecture where she worked on a variety of private and public projects, including Dallas's Southwestern Medical District and the Sony Center plaza in Berlin. She received her Master in Landscape Architecture from Harvard Graduate School of Design, where she was awarded the Penny White Fellowship for her research on digital infrastructure in port cities and assisted in the publication of OBL/QUE, a journal on critical conservation studies. McKenna is originally from Washington State, and before her career in landscape architecture, she spent several years living and working in Houston's energy industry, where she received her Bachelor of Science in Geological Sciences from Rice University. Her interest in landscape architecture developed while exploring the flat, green tangle of the Bayou City and surrounding region.


Associate

Drake Flood is a designer; born and raised in Houston, Texas. An alumnus of the suburbs, Drake graduated Magna Cum Laude with his B. Arch from the University of Houston Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture and Design. In his time at school, Drake developed a love for teaching, drawing, and storytelling. For his senior research project, Drake delved into the archives of the school and emerged with the prescient stories of students long past. This project, and a passion for student organizing, earned him the 2022 Nia Becnel Leadership award.

Drake has been published in Texas Architect, Cite Digital, and Cite Magazine. He is interested in the ever changing landscape of Houston, and how we can best use words and images to approximate it.

Drake Flood is a designer; born and raised in Houston, Texas. An alumnus of the suburbs, Drake graduated Magna Cum Laude with his B. Arch from the University of Houston Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture and Design. In his time at school, Drake developed a love for teaching, drawing, and storytelling.

Designer

She is Co-Editor-in-Chief of the upcoming issue of PLAT Journal exploring ideas of the divine, divination, and divinity and how they register in spaces, bodies, and imaginaries. In practice, she is concerned with the agency of the designer in a changing climate, and how we adapt for a more resilient future. Current projects at Dept. include Community-Oriented Stormwater Infrastructure (CO-SI), where she is working on design scenarios for nuisance flooding in Houston in partnership with the SSPEED Center. Prior to joining Dept., she worked as a designer at von Dalwig and Carlos Jiménez Studio. 

Tasiana Paolisso is a designer from Washington, DC currently pursuing a Master of Architecture degree at the Rice School of Architecture. She is fascinated by the ineffable qualities of place and the deeply embedded histories and memories of a landscape.

Intern Designer

Lily won the 2021 Erin Mackenzie Peck Award, awarded annually to the top rising sophomore student. In 2023, she received the Rosemary Watkin Barrick Traveling Fellowship that supported her study of contemporary Vietnamese architecture’s approaches to restoring the Vietnamese identity. She also is the recepient of The Berda and Charles Soon Chan Memorial Scholarship, awarded to a senior who had the highest cumulative GPA in their junior year. In student-organized events, she was a core member of the winning team for the 2023 annual Archi-Arts installation. Outside of school, she has work experience in architecture and interior design firms in Beijing. Her main hobby is drawing both digitally and on paper.  

Jiayi (Lily) Li is a designer from Beijing, China. She is  currently pursuing a BA and B.Arch degree at Rice School of Architecture. She carries a keen appreciation for the intricacies of the environment and possesses an innate curiosity about the temporality of the landscape. Lily contributes to Dept.'s design and visualization work for multiple projects.

Dept. is a landscape architecture and urban design studio that provides creative, useful, and adaptive design responses for the public and the environment.