HANNAH BROOK SMITH
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE PORTFOLIO
Trained as an artist, earning my BA from St. Lawrence University in Fine Art, Art History, Outdoor Studies/Sustainability, and English, in 2015, with a heart for ecology and natural systems. I am a Rochester, New York native who spent a period of time living and working in the North Country and the Adirondack region of New York State as well as Cortona, Italy in the heart of Tuscany. Both worlds and their landscapes, communities and ways of life; changed me forever.
​
I found Landscape Architecture when I was 30, after ten years of professional experience across a diverse range of industries; food production, wood working, hospitality, marketing and sales, art + design, naturopathic medicine, business ownership, education, strength + conditioning, health coaching, and nursery and landscaping work.
It was while co-managing a third-generation print shop in Rochester that I discovered Landscape Architecture. I was called to apply to graduate school and with a heavy heart, leave a team of people in Rochester I loved to pursue a career where I hoped to make a difference in communities and for landscapes in need of healing and regenerative support.
As of Fall 2025, I am a rising third year graduate student in the Master's of Landscape Architecture program at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, this website serves as an overview of who I am, my background personally and professionally, and the work I have created so far in this MLA degree process.
With gratitude,
Hannah Brook Smith
PERSONAL
STATEMENT
01 Portfolio
My work reflects a variety of goals based on prompts with specific focus sites, their history, current context and future plans. Depending on the type of project and the type of skills learned and practiced; while exploring with curiosity a variety of workflows, my portfolio highlights a range of outcomes. ​My graphic style and language comes through in all these works and is continuously developing as I move farther into this degree and gain more experiences professionally and personally. I often design for the best possible long-term ecological effectiveness married with positive human health outcomes, while pushing myself to experiment and explore new techniques and tools, while always grounding myself in reality and pragmatic choices.
Stone Quarry Art Park Project Visualization, Cazenovia, New York | Fall 2025
02 Buzz Words
Regenerative Design, Adaptive Reuse, Environmental Justice, Participatory Design, Public Health through Ecological Health, Permaculture, Circular Flows. Landscape wellness, healthy productive people and communities, interconnected living systems, messy networks and innovative possibilities.
03 Design Statement
Where art, ecology and infrastructure meet and marry. Ethical/fair land use and planning, regenerative living systems thinking, economic and ecological equity, community development, positive public health outcomes, resilient systems, rethinking how we live, make, grow, play and work and the spaces in which we do all these things. Creating places that improve human and non-human lives over time rather than degrade them.