Dept. is a landscape architecture and urban design studio based in Houston and working throughout the Gulf Coast, Southeast, and beyond. We design for the public and the environment. From the small garden to the city, we design landscapes that respond to their social and ecological context  and bolster all forms of life. Our work thrives on collaboration, so we work with communities and stakeholders to create impactful designs that reflect a sense of place. Our services include landscape architecture, urban design, and planning.

Dept. was selected as Architect Newspaper's 2024 "Editors Pick" for Best Practice in Landscape Architecture (SW) and was awarded the 2022 League Prize from the Architectural League of New York. A recent project called The Court in Seaside, FL won the ASLA Florida Award for Environmental Sustainability and the Award for Design Excellence. The Good Neighbor Stormwater Park in North Miami, FL won the APA Gold Coast Award for Innovation. Current projects include a 5-acre stormwater park on Buffalo Bayou in Houston, TX; a residential complex in Miami, FL; and a 50-acre ecological restoration project along the Indian River Lagoon.

Our design work balances creativity and pragmatism as we work with our clients and partners to produce  visions for the future that are grounded in the realities of implementation and living systems. Our apporach to landscape design starts by understanding the social, cultural, and ecological context and aims to work with natural forces rather than against them. We believe that at any scale, design can improve ecological health, and throughout our projects, we work with our clients to create beautiful, sensitive, and living landscapes.   

Maggie attends final reviews for "Land Studio I: Region" at Pratt Institute's MLA program, instructed by Mark Heller.

Tree relocation begins at  Windsor North Village.

December 2024

Maggie and Isaac present a guest lecture alongside Matthias Bouw  of 

 at Harvard GSD's Climate by Design, taught by Amy Whitesides.

 was selected for an Honorable Mention by the 

 in the category of Best of Urban Design and Master Plan 2024. 

November 2024

Dept.'s short piece called  "Tendencies in Landscape Representation" and an interview/conversation with 

 are published in "American Disorientation," edited by 

 (Pratt Institute) in collaboration with Props Paper. The launch party took place on October 30 at Bungee Space in New York.

October 2024

Architect Newspaper's "Editor's Pick" for Best in Practice - Landscape Architecture (Southwest Region)

 is on view starting June 27-August 23 at the 

Maggie Tsang and Isaac Stein join the board of 

June 2024

, edited by Brittany Utting and Albert Pope is published, including Maggie Tsang's article, "Mire/Ire: Mosquitos, Swamps, and Lansdcapes of Control."

Maggie Tsang attends Harvard GSD's  Master of Landscape Architecture Thesis Reviews on May 10 as a guest critic.

of the 2024 League Prize, "Dirty," are announced. Maggie Tsang served as a part of the Young Designers Committee along with 

May 2024

Dept.'s work on Windsor North Village is published in the April issue of 

Isaac Stein and Maggie Tsang participate in 

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Architecture and Urban Planning

April 2024

 at Tulane School of Architecture on March 6, 2024 titled, "Tending."

March 2024

Install for the ADU gardens at the Menil Colleciton bungalows started in early December.

Maggie is part of the Young Designer's Committee for the 

Architectural League of New York's 2024 League Prize, "Dirty,"

 along with Sarah Aziz and Rodrigo  Escandón Cesarman.

Maggie served on the jury for Rice Architecture's 

Houston Design Research Grant and the Spotlight Committee

December 2023

"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 / P: 713 -367-1275

Maggie Tsang is a landscape architect, architect, and urbanist. She has expertise across multiple disciplines including landscape 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. 

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. 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.


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. 

Associate

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.

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. 

Designer

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