Karla Dakin

Karla Dakin is a landscape architect and an artist. Her practice focuses on plant-driven design of landscapes, food gardens and green roofs for private residences, museums and public spaces, as well as commercial projects. As a leader in the field, Dakin creates green spaces that push our expectations of landscape and engage all five senses, making places that are both ecologically sound and aesthetically resonant.

Since founding K. Dakin Design in 1997, Dakin has completed over 100 residential landscapes, two major museum roof gardens and dozens of commercial and public projects. She co-authored The Professional Design Guide to Green Roofs (published by Timber Press in 2013) and lectures internationally on subjects ranging from the future of green roofs to food gardens and the relationship between art practice and landscape architecture. In addition to being a licensed landscape architect, Dakin has studied permaculture and biodynamic gardening, giving her a level of horticultural knowledge that is rare in the field.

Dakin brings over 20 years of experience in landscape architecture to each project as well as a professional background and aesthetic sensibility polished by her early years working in the international art worlds of New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Her practice hinges on the understanding that each project has a unique context, both human and ecological. For Dakin, the design process is a collaboration between landscape architect, client and site: both a discipline and an art.