Samantha J. Harris

Sam’s formative years were rooted in the vibrant, environmentally sensitive and multi-culturally rich setting of New York City in the 1970's and 80's. Training in art, ecology, botany, education and design further developed her talent for unearthing authentic stories of diverse places and people. Following her multivalent interests, she earned a BA in Studio Art, Minor in Botany from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and later completed her Master of Landscape Architecture at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design.

She spent 19 fruitful years with Rios Clementi Hale Studios (RCHS), an internationally renowned multi-disciplinary design studio. A licensed Landscape Architect and Principal at RCHS, Sam was influential in studio design work, including involvement in the global product line, notNeutral. In practice, she has followed her entwined passions, continuing explorations into culture through art and written works while successfully traversing all scales of landscape design from directing development of master plans to garden, product, graphic design and public art. Her ability to devise artful, environmentally sustainable solutions has allowed her to helm projects from planning and design through construction, gaining international awards and publications along the way.

Sam is currently the Director of Culture Horticulture, a lab for artists, landscape designers, gardeners and other urban biophiliacs whose work explores the intertwined experience at the intersection of Culture (community/art/society/economics) and Horticulture (plants/gardens/environmental) issues and focuses on the consideration of beauty in the evolution of urban wildness and resilience in the post-wild anthropocene world.