Ten Eyck Landscape Architects

Meet our summer intern!

Kaitlyn grew up in the small town of Dandridge, located on the French Broad River in the mountains of East Tennessee. Growing up, she enjoyed spending days on the water and hiking through the woods as well as reading in cozy indoor environments. Kaitlyn’s interest in landscape architecture stemmed from a curiously creative mind, an enjoyment of nature, and a want to build up her community. In her practice, she is particularly compelled to explore the integration of human and non-human systems and how modern software and technology might help us better understand, and graphically represent, these complex and dynamic relationships.

She has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Tennessee Knoxville’s College Scholars program in Green Planning and Ecological Landscape Design, with minors in leadership studies and plant sciences. She is currently pursuing her MLA at the University of Tennessee Knoxville. She has enjoyed exploring Austin during her summer internship here and has been able to visit many fun locations.

We have loved having her as part of our team. Best of luck Kaitlyn and be sure to visit us again soon!

We are thrilled to announce that TELA was a part of THREE projects that received a 2024 National AIA Architecture Award!

San Antonio Botanical Garden tangibly connects visitors to the natural world to reinforce the Garden’s mission of accessibility, environmental stewardship, and education. The University of Arizona Student Success District transformed thousands of square feet of exposed and unwelcoming spaces into an academic, social, and ecological campus hub that embraces and sustains wellness within the desert. The Holdsworth Center, a campus for public educational leadership development, features interactive opportunities woven amongst restored endemic ecosystems, harnessing nature’s restorative qualities to create an ideal learning environment.

We wanted to express our sincerest gratitude to our architecture collaborator firms, Weddle Gilmore, Lake | Flato, Miller Hull Partnership and Poster Mirto McDonald, who appreciate our mission to create spaces that connect the urban dweller with nature and each other.

TEXAS ASLA 2024 MERIT AWARD

This residential landscape features five distinct zones, including a Mediterranean pool garden and surrounding riparian gardens. Wherever possible, existing natural features were conserved and utilized, including gorgeous heritage live oaks and bald cypress. The resulting design includes both shaded and sun-soaked rooms where the family’s three generations can gather, relax, and entertain. A new network of trails provides the opportunity to explore the native landscape surrounding the residence. A close collaboration between clients, designers, and contractor transformed this tired property into a vibrant, varied landscape showcasing the beauty and versatility of native plants and local materials.

Project: Hill Country Village Estate
Location: San Antonio, Texas
Size: 6 Acres
Completed: 2023
Project Team: Michael G Imber Architects; Native American Seed; Danysh & Associates (Structural); Studio Lumina (Lighting); Edmund Jenschke, Inc.; PRA Irrigation; Truax General Contractors

TELA is elated to share and celebrate the promotions of three of our talented team members! Their contributions have been immeasurable to our success and body of work, pushing boundaries and motivating us all to design at the highest level. Each of them champions our firm’s goal of creating outdoor environments that connect the urban dweller to nature and each other. We are grateful for their talent, dedication, and are honored to have them as part of our team.

Please give a warm welcome to our newest team member Regan O’Brien!

Regan discovered her fascination with public space by exploring her hometown of San Antonio by foot, stringing together parks, neighborhoods, and portions of the Riverwalk, she began to realize the vital connection between cities, parks, and people. Regan continues to study the city as a constant observer and loves to imagine better solutions for American urbanism. As a landscape designer, Regan enjoys all phases of design, from mapping and analysis, to site visits and construction observation.

Regan holds a Bachelor of Science in Landscape Architecture from Arizona State University and has worked at firms across Texas. When out of the office, Regan can be found running around Town Lake, collecting vintage maps, and taking full advantage of Austin’s live music scene with friends and family.

We are thrilled to announce that TELA was a part of not one but FOUR projects that received a 2022 American Architecture Award from The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies! The award’s focus is to highlight new and cutting-edge design in the United States, promoting it around the US and abroad. Each of these project’s center around the merging of the built and the natural environment to immerse the user in eco-driven engagement.

- Kingsbury Commons at Pease Park artfully weaves together the mature existing vegetation with a robust set of program features while preserving and enhancing existing historic features, embracing the park’s rich history.
- Hotel Magdalena connects visitors to the sensory experience of Texas hill country springs and canyons through regional materials and playful design, sparking a sense of discovery at every turn.
- Holdsworth Center utilizes an integrated stormwater management strategy that is beautiful for campus visitors yet functional as it maximizes infiltration and water cleansing before releasing runoff into Lake Austin.
- Marfa Ranch’s simple outdoor spaces were inspired by the expansive but minimal Chihuahuan Desert grassland and horizon where the ranch is located.

We wanted to express our sincerest gratitude to our like-minded architecture collaborator firms, Lake | Flato and Clayton Korte, who appreciate our mission to create spaces that connect the urban dweller with nature and each other.

This award-winning El Paso compound required a master plan that melded the existing house and property with an additional 1-acre lot, plus a new architectural addition. The spare aesthetic of our client and the new building required simple outdoor spaces with quite different landscape design approaches. The entry and parking court are defined by freestanding gabion walls and concrete and steel planters filled with tough desert cactus and mesquites. An elevated entry walk brings one from the parking area to the front door. Other small courtyards embrace this drought-tolerant aesthetic, relying on clean forms, sculptural plantings, and textures for visual interest. By contrast, the sheltered, central courtyard stands out as a verdant oasis: a pool, lawn, and shade trees provide cool relief from the heat and a welcoming space for entertaining the client’s large family.



Location: El Paso, Texas

Size: 1.5 Acres

Completed: 2021
Project Team: Lake | Flato; Construction Zone; Architectural Engineers Collaborative; Collaborative Engineering Group

Awards: 2022 Texas Society of Architects Design Award; 2021 AIA San Antonio Honor Award; 2021 Architect’s Newspaper Best of Design Award - Honorable Mention

Our multi-disciplinary team was chosen to help create a new vision for the 600-acre UT Permian Basin campus in Odessa. The master plan focuses on the enhancement of the campus’s native ecological story prior to it becoming a West Texas ranch dotted with oil wells. We established new entries and signage to the campus, redesigned the existing four-acre quad, developed the Bright Stars Memorial, and created a trail system that follows the path of water through the site, connecting students and community residents to the native ecosystems. Floodwaters from adjacent low-lying streets are slowed and captured on campus to create ephemeral playa lakes and arroyos, which in turn help establish a shortgrass prairie ecosystem, the habitat of native wildlife like the Northern Harrier and Burrowing Owls.

The team proposed a plan that creates different programmatic precincts within the large 4-acre quad using structures; a judicious lawn; an open plaza anchored by a sculpture of UT Permian Basin’s mascot, Fiona the falcon; outdoor dining tables; and native prairie gardens. New monumentation creates gateways into campus that are highly visible from the adjacent busy arterial roads. Together with the team, TELA produced fundraising graphics to help convey the design vision. At present the project is moving into schematic design.

Location: Odessa, Texas
Size: 600 Acres
Completed: 2022
Project Team: Parkhill; Lake|Flato; RSM Design; Regenerative Environmental Design

As we embark on the last quarter of 2022, we would like to reintroduce our accomplished team member, Principal JP Casillas, PLA, RA, ASLA, LEED AP. As a Puerto Rican native, JP spent much of his childhood on his grandparents’ cattle ranch and coffee farm, where he first became aware of the dynamic relationship between people and the land. This formative experience ignited JP’s lifelong interest in stewardship for the built and natural environment through design, prompting him to pursue studies at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Design where he received the Eleanore T. Widenmeyer Prize in addition to master’s degrees in both Landscape Architecture and Architecture.

His work is distinguished by his respect for natural forces and processes, interest in the intersection between landscape and architecture, and hybrid approach to problem solving that crosses traditional discipline boundaries. This can be seen in the amazing projects he has and is leading our team on, including The Holdsworth Center (Austin), Commodore Perry Estate (Austin), Saint Augustine Hotel (Houston), and Harwood Park (Dallas). Not only is he a great meticulous designer but he is also the most patient person we know! His leadership and mentorship have been imperative to our team’s success, and we look forward to seeing what lies ahead. He is married to fellow Puerto Rican Aileen Orlandi and has two beautiful children!

We are thrilled to announce that our project Campsite at Shield Ranch was awarded Gold under the Sustainable SITES Initiative rating system!
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Located just south of Rocky Creek on the historic 6,800-acre Shield Ranch, the Campsite at Shield Ranch is a net-zero, 100% off-grid, sustainably constructed nature immersion camp. The incredible ecological sensitivity of the site within the Barton Creek watershed - it is protected under a conservation easement that strictly governs development - informed the ground-truthing process to locate all elements to protect the habitat, limestone geology, existing stormwater processes, and native vegetation. The design includes a mile of trails, wooden pedestrian bridges, a new parking area, eleven screened sleeping shelters, and an open-air pavilion wrapped in natural cedar stays that is accessible via a pedestrian bridge floating within the tree canopy. Given the tight construction envelope, TELA performed numerous site visits and closely collaborated with the design and construction team to ensure all elements were appropriately tucked into the mature hillside woodlands and open meadow, heightening the immersive Texas Hill Country experience. The campsite serves El Ranchito, an ecological summer camp for 4th through 12th graders, and provides year-round nature programming for the larger community.
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Project: Campsite at Shield Ranch
Location: Dripping Springs, Texas
Size: 14 Acres
Completed: 2022
Awards: SITES Gold 2022
Project Team: Andersson Wise, Regenerative Environmental Design, WGI, Architectural Engineers Collaborative, Hill & Wilkinson
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Sometimes the best vacation spots are in your own backyard!

We are excited to have our pool design featured on the cover of D Magazine. Our work at the Commodore Perry Estate Hotel weaves modern additions into this historic estate turned hotel. The pool and surrounding garden were designed to sit within the undulating topography to highlight the views of the mansion above, while preserving the stunning heritage oak trees that surround it. Interior designer Ken Fulk’s yellow pool umbrellas and lounges create a shady escape from the summer sun -- the icing on the cake for this design!
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Project: Commodore Perry Estate
Location: Austin, Texas
Size: 3.5 Acres
Completed: 2020
Project Team: Auberge Resorts, Moule & Polyzoides Architects & Urbanists, Clayton & Little, Ken Fulk Inc., Architectural Engineers Collaborative, Integral Group, SRI & Associates, Rogers O’ Brien Construction, Altura Solutions, Melbil Design
Awards: 2021 Austin Home Magazine Best Commercial Design Award, Architectural Digest & Travel + Leisure 2021 Best New Hotels in the World
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As landscape architects, we strive to create spaces that evoke an emotional response from visitors to facilitate a connection to the site and encourage generational care.
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The New Parkland Hospital campus is an urban state-of-the-art public facility that serves the greater Dallas County community. Here, landscape and architecture create an immersive healing environment that extends outdoors, prioritizing comfort, accessibility, wayfinding, and environmental stewardship. Integrated entry plazas, gardens, and trails showcase Texas Blackland Prairie habitat and provide opportunities for gathering and solitude for patients, visitors, and hospital employees. Soothing sounds of water, textural limestone, and planting rich in color and fragrance create a multidimensional landscape that stimulates the senses. In total, the project presents a new model for healthcare landscapes, one that recognizes and utilizes the link between human and environmental health to provide high-quality care. This garden has quickly become a respite not only for families and patients but also nurses, doctors, and hospital staff who, on a recent visit, let us know that daily trips to the wellness garden have become an integral part of their work day.
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Project: The New Parkland Hospital
Location: Dallas, Texas
Size: 65 Acres, 30 Constructed
Completed: 2015
Partners: MESA Design Group, Studio Outside
Project Team: Corgan, HDR, Inc., Pacheco-Koch, Lume Architectural Lighting Design, Hines, Inc., ValleyCrest
Awards: Texas AIA LEED Gold; 2016 Texas ASLA Honor Award
Photographer: Arlen Kennedy
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As landscape architects, we strive to create spaces that evoke an emotional response from visitors to facilitate a connection to the site and encourage generational care.
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The New Parkland Hospital campus is an urban state-of-the-art public facility that serves the greater Dallas County community. Here, landscape and architecture create an immersive healing environment that extends outdoors, prioritizing comfort, accessibility, wayfinding, and environmental stewardship. Integrated entry plazas, gardens, and trails showcase Texas Blackland Prairie habitat and provide opportunities for gathering and solitude for patients, visitors, and hospital employees. Soothing sounds of water, textural limestone, and planting rich in color and fragrance create a multidimensional landscape that stimulates the senses. In total, the project presents a new model for healthcare landscapes, one that recognizes and utilizes the link between human and environmental health to provide high-quality care. This garden has quickly become a respite not only for families and patients but also nurses, doctors, and hospital staff who, on a recent visit, let us know that daily trips to the wellness garden have become an integral part of their work day.
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Project: The New Parkland Hospital
Location: Dallas, Texas
Size: 65 Acres, 30 Constructed
Completed: 2015
Partners: MESA Design Group, Studio Outside
Project Team: Corgan, HDR, Inc., Pacheco-Koch, Lume Architectural Lighting Design, Hines, Inc., ValleyCrest
Awards: Texas AIA LEED Gold; 2016 Texas ASLA Honor Award
Photographer: Arlen Kennedy
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Understanding and planting native plant communities to highlight a site’s beauty and increase its ecological diversity is a vital aspect of our work as landscape architects.
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This 6-acre sloping site in San Antonio is situated along an ephemeral creek with an overstory of mature live oaks and little native understory. We planted native dry-shade loving plants like white mistflower, sedges, Inland sea oats and Turk’s cap in order to repair and prevent erosion and added understory trees like Texas mountain laurel, Texas redbud and Mexican plum outside of live oak root zones. Frog fruit and native dwarf palmettos are tucked among inland sea oats along the creek bank. The front entry is highlighted by a textural palette of sedges, possumhaw, bamboo muhly, and silver Mediterranean fan palms along with planters of blue succulents as accents.
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Project: Napier Residence
Location: San Antonio, Texas
Size: 6 Acres
Completed: 2018
Project Team: Tobin Smith Architect, Truax Construction, Casa Verde Landscape Contractor
Photographer: Richard Bloom
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Landscape architecture is about the incorporation and enhancement of existing site water systems to maximize sustainability and the longevity of a design.
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Because of our work in the southwest, the path of water plays a crucial role in all our projects’ beauty and function. At The Holdsworth Center, we celebrate the ephemeral memory of water through a series of rainwater capture features that have been developed with the site’s natural drainage ways. These features are enjoyed by both human and wildlife visitors alike!
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Project: The Holdsworth Center
Location: Austin, Texas
Size: 44 Acres
Completed: 2021
Project Team: Lake|Flato Architects, Stantec, AEC, Integral Group, Hines Inc, Siglo Group, Waterline Studios, Mazzetti, Looney & Associates, Page/Dyal, Square One Consultants
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Turtle Photo: Jenny Freels
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TELA is excited to announce that the recently completed Kingsbury Commons at Pease Park was awarded Gold under the Sustainable SITES Initiative rating system! We are grateful for the support and vision of our clients and , and the hard work of our entire project team!

If you want to read more about the Sustainable SITES Initiative and how Kingsbury Commons helps foster a healthy, sustainable, and ecologically vibrant community for wildlife and people alike, check out the link in our bio!

Project team:


lumina





Regenerative Environmental Design (Heather Venhaus)
Jerry Garza (MEP)

📸: Adam Barbe

Join our Team! TELA is seeking a Mid-Level Landscape Architect/Designer with 3-5 years of experience to join our Austin-based team. The ideal candidate will be ready to hit the ground running, is passionate about our profession, responsible, and enjoys collaboration. See the link below more information about this position and how to apply:

https://teneyckla.com/contact/careers