“Throughout history, people of all cultures have assumed that environment influences behavior. Now modern science is confirming that our actions, thoughts, and feelings are indeed shaped not just by our genes and neurochemistry, history and relationships, also by our surroundings.”
place
My personal understanding of place is informed by both my lived experience and by having worked with an exceptional group of "placemakers"—architects, planners, landscape architects and interior designers—for many years.
I grew up in Butte, Montana and Ventura, California. My college and post graduate years took me to La Jolla, California, Bordeaux and Paris, France and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Then it was on to Reno, Nevada; Houston, Texas and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where I worked in design firms that were busy shaping everything from entire new cities in the Middle East to open offices in shiny corporate headquarters in urban centers to suburban shopping centers.
When I established my consultancy, I moved to New York City working in cities across the US and in London. I decamped Manhattan for Boston, Massachusetts and Santa Monica, California. At the same time, I began to write about the way places were being reconsidered and reshaped to meet the changing needs of communities. After 15 years on the California coast, I am now settled in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where I continue to explore the power of place.
“Where I was born and how I have lived is unimportant. It is what I have done with where I have been that should be of interest.”
