Faye Harwell, FASLA
Director - Landscape Architect
Faye co-founded RHI 36 years ago and has designed award-winning projects throughout the United States, Canada, and overseas. Her work reflects innovative concepts in sustainability and demonstrates that new and historic landscapes are equally compatible with ecological design and the creation of vibrant, new places for people to enjoy. Faye’s expertise and passion for creating new landscapes and restoring historic properties has transformed diverse nationally significant sites, including the US National Arboretum, numerous national parks, US embassies in Indonesia, Malta and beyond, and the George Mason National Memorial, Washington, DC. Faye, holds the honor of being one of only three women to ever lead the design of a national memorial on the National Mall, earning praise from design critics, news media, and park visitors. As a student of Ian McHarg, and with her background in art history, Faye recognizes that landscape architecture has both functional and artistic consequences; it is intimately responsible for perception of a site’s historic, cultural, and natural context. Ecological resiliency, cultural resource preservation, and construction craftsmanship frame her dynamic and continuously evolving body of work in the public realm.
A Fellow and a former Trustee of the American Society of Landscape Architects, Faye is a role model for the profession and a mentor for young landscape architects. She has appeared in films on the subject of landscape design, has frequently spoken and lectured at universities and institutions in the US and Canada and is a board advisor to the National Association for Olmsted Parks. Faye is an energetic practitioner who continues to be at the forefront of design in landscape architecture with a vision that artfully creates and restores memorable landscapes for the 21st Century.
Faye loves ballet, speaks French and is a pretty good cartoonist.