PETERSEN STUDIO is a landscape architecture and planning practice committed to creating engaging and enduring places that are rooted within their cultural and environmental contexts.  Each project is imbued with our commitment to design, craft and sustainability, and is realized as a reflection of the Client’s goals and distinct project opportunities.  We passionately create landscapes that enhance and enrich users’ lives, while advancing our shared culture – a passion applied equally to projects of all scales, from individual residences to urban parks enjoyed by millions of visitors.

PETERSEN STUDIO has the expertise to deliver the most complex and challenging landscape architecture projects, including fast-track projects like $53 Discovery Green in downtown Houston.  Many of our urban projects include on-structure landscapes or roof gardens requiring specialized knowledge, technical detailing, and careful coordination with project architects and engineers.  We have worked with a diverse range of private owners, developers, and public agency clients across multiple sectors; institutional, corporate, academic, multi-family residential, public parks and plazas.  

We foster highly collaborative inter-disciplinary relationships with design team architects, engineers, artists, ecologists, soils scientists, economists, and O&M specialists to realize the broad potential of each project.  This inter-disciplinary approach allows us to develop and evolve high-performance design solutions supported by technical and scientific expertise.   Our process is both creatively intuitive and technically rational. 

PETERSEN STUDIO is currently leading the design of a 46-acre Chula Vista Bayfront Parks on San Diego’s south bayfront, a 20-acre office campus on San Francisco’s bayfront, multiple pocket parks and plazas in downtown San Diego’s Makers Quarter District, and two high-rise residential projects.  We were recently honored to be included among some of the world’s most talented public space designers as a semi-finalist for the international competition to redesign Pershing Square - downtown Los Angeles’ central park.     

PETERSEN STUDIO is a California Corporation and San Francisco Local Business Enterprise founded by Jacob Petersen in 2014, following 14 years with Hargreaves Associates’ San Francisco Office, during which he was Principal-in-Charge of many of the firm’s most significant and challenging urban parks and landscapes.