PROFILE
Land Design One Pte Ltd is a landscape architectural practice based in Singapore and Manila, providing services locally and to all of Asia and surrounding regions. Land Design One brings together the internationally diverse experience of its partners as well as a skilled technical team to provide personal service and leading-edge design to a sophisticated clientele.
We practise with the basic precepts of the landscape architecture profession as our foundation, including environmental stewardship, creation of livable communities, and cultivation of the natural link between people and the land.
As landscape architects we are typically regarded as well-informed generalists, and as such, we provide design services based on problem solving and a well-reasoned process following the tenets of rational design: form with function, function with form.
Responding to the individual site, client, and user, we refrain from imposing or repeating a signature style on projects, instead, aiming for a creative and unique solution to each assignment. And we constantly recognise and balance the application of the various facets of our professional practice–environmental, aesthetic, social, and economic–understanding that at the end of the day the landscape knows no boundaries and is that part of the built environment experienced and shared by everyone.
Land Design One is registered as a recognised practice with the Singapore Institute of Landscape Architects.
TEAM
Neal Samac
Brian Baker
Kathleen Lacsina
Maria Lenna Joson-Ong
Neal Samac, SILA-PALA
Managing Director
As group Managing Director, Neal provides a leading voice in the guidance of Land Design One's projects, with particular focus on creating and maintaining the design integrity and quality control of the firm's assignments. His portfolio is diverse and comprehensive--residential communities, golf and resort development, commercial and mixed-use complexes, and civic landscapes located in the Philippines, Singapore, India, China and the Middle East--and it gives him the basis for presenting appropriate and innovative design solutions to both the most straightforward or complex of projects.
After receiving a Bachelors Degree in Landscape Architecture in 1995 from the University of Philippines, Neal's career continued in the Philippines with I.P. Santos Associates, and in 1999 he co-founded Samac Gonzales Saño Design (SGS Design) in Manila. As founding principal he helped manage the firm through its early stages of establishment and spearheaded the design efforts on its projects. Later, as an Associate at Peridian Asia in Singapore, he successfully managed the design development and landscape implementation of the Marina Bay Sands Integrated Resort, Singapore's largest and most notable mixed-use development to-date.
Neal is a registered landscape architect in the Philippines and an accredited landscape architect in Singapore and has been a member of the Philippine Association of Landscape Architects (PALA) since 1996 and the Singapore Institute of Landscape Architects since 2001.
Brian Baker, ASLA
Director, Singapore
A landscape architect originally from Los Angeles, Brian has spent almost twenty five years of his practice working internationally, primarily in Asia. Within the Landscape Architecture profession he has served in various capacities reflecting the diversity of the planning and design process, from being master planner of new communities and recreation facilities to designer of intimate outdoor spaces.
As a Director at Land Design One Brian carries on an active role in Asia, advising on the planning and design of parks and other public spaces, residential communities, and institutional landscapes, including healthcare facilities and campuses. Influenced by Asian, European, and American approaches to landscape planning and urban design he brings his experience in conceptualising the structure and arrangement of outdoor space with special attention given to exploring the social and functional roles of the built landscape, as well as to the promotion of its environmental and economic value to both public and private development.
He has also been involved in education through much of his career, teaching landscape design and construction methods at UCLA Extension in Los Angeles and later at Keio University, Tokyo Women's Art College, and University of Tsukuba in Japan, where he focused on urban landscape issues as well as formal design theory and methodology.
Brian maintains his principal residence in Barcelona and is a registered landscape architect in the State of California and a member of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA).
Kathleen Lacsina, PALA
Director, Singapore
Kate is an accomplished and versatile landscape architect who brings years of managerial and design experience to Land Design One, overseeing operations and project management of both studios while directing the design and implementation of work developed in the Singapore office.
With an approach to Landscape Architecture that stems from the experiential quality of the built space, her background includes landscape design of residential, commercial and mixed-use development, hotels and resorts, parks and recreation, and institutional work. Her expertise extends to environmental design and technologies, including the implementation of Singapore’s ABC Waters Programme, Green Mark assessment, and Skyrise Greenery development.
Kate graduated with a Bachelors Degree in Landscape Architecture from the University of the Philippines and has been a member of the Philippine Association of Landscape Architects (PALA) since 2004 and is as well a member of the Singapore Institute of Landscape Architects (SILA). She is a licensed landscape architect in the Philippines and an accredited landscape architect in Singapore.
Aside from her professional practice she is active in education, being involved in the creation of a lecture series , “The Global Architect”, a programme focused on Sustainability, Green Architecture and the emerging profession of Landscape Architecture in the Philippines, and which was presented at two universities, Saint Louis University and University of Pangasinan. Kate is also former Editor in Chief of Fastlane, a motorsports magazine published in Singapore and Malaysia.
Maria Lenna Joson-Ong
Studio Director, Manila
Lenna brings over 20 years of landscape architectural experience to Land Design One, having led teams in the conceptual planning as well as construction documentation of a variety of projects in the Philippines as well as internationally. She has also operated her own landscape architectural consulting business and has been in charge of construction supervision while employed with other firms, thus honing her proficiency in directing projects from conception to implementation.
Her project background includes resort and residential developments, along with extensive experience in public works and institutional/exposition facilities, including such notable works as the Centennial Freedom Trail, Fort Bonifacio Heritage Park, and the Philippine Centennial Exposition at Clark Field.
Lenna graduated from the University of the Philippines, Diliman in 1992 with honors and has undertaken post-graduate studies in Tropical Landscape Architecture. She is an active member of the Philippine Association of Landscape Architects (PALA). In addition to her landscape architectural career she has been involved in a family-owned business and has written and published a children's storybook.
