About MSP

MSP creates artistic landscapes and innovative climate solutions. Our work combines art and science to address the impacts of climate change and provide for healthy communities.

Profile

Martha Schwartz Partners (MSP) creates artistic landscapes and innovative climate solutions across all sectors and scales. Our work combines art and science to address the impacts of climate change and provide for healthy and vibrant communities.

Our broad expertise enables us to use the landscape as a platform for cultural exchange as well as green-blue infrastructure for cooling, stormwater management, carbon drawdown, food and energy production, air pollutant cleaning and the enhancement of biodiversity.

With studios in London, New York and Shanghai and a multi-disciplinary team from all over the globe, MSP has a portfolio of award-winning projects in over 40 countries. MSP’s creative and strategic approach creates landscapes which deliver environmental, economic and social sustainability.

We are involved in academic research to continually improve our understanding of how we can protect and regenerate natural ecosystems to mitigate the impact of climate change and help cities to adapt to the evolving challenges ahead.

MSP has been recognized for its contribution to the field of landscape architecture since 1980. The firm has received many international awards and honors, including the American Society of Landscape Architects Landmark Award, The British Landscape Industries Regeneration Award, the Chicago Athenaeum Award for Best Global Design, The Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award and the Urban Land Institute Award for Excellence.

Process

MSP’s working process reflects our global understanding of how contemporary urban landscapes and the public realm work in practice. We consider the full diversity of urban factors: how group interests, social, cultural, economic and political forces interact to produce the space of the city. We encourage collaborative dialogue among the different viewpoints, so we can appreciate the various requirements and them through our design.

We evolve the project from the inside out, through the inclusive design charrette with clients and stakeholders. The design charrette is a high-energy brainstorming process that allows all participants, on an equal footing, to work through the project issues and envision possible outcomes. This energetic exchange culminates in a consensus on a basic direction which underpins further development by MSP.

This collaborative process is supported by MSP’s signature, innovative thinking. Our creativity challenges the conventions that limit the ways in which we imagine how people can live in cities. Rather than designing for the lowest common denominator - as may happen when there are many vested interests - MSP finds fresh concepts to create expressive landscapes that gratify stakeholders. There are often surprises; there is always cultural relevance, and an appreciation of the local ecosystems and their response to climate change.