Welcoming Heather

Heather Corcoran, PLA

JCLA is delighted to welcome Heather Corcoran, PLA to our team. Pennsylvania-raised and Texas-trained, Heather found her way into landscape architecture while working as a design journalist in New York City. Her investigations for national news outlets and architectural publications revealed the richly-layered stories of particular sites and convinced her of the important role that design has in shaping the built environment for human-centered outcomes. As an MLA candidate at the University of Texas at Austin, she worked with the Gulf Coast DesignLab, a design-build program rooted in environmental advocacy. After graduation, she joined Austin’s Parks and Recreation Department, engaging community groups in participatory design to realize improvements on parkland and shepherd ecological restoration efforts on the city’s beloved greenbelts. Prior to joining JCLA, she practiced landscape architecture with a multi-disciplinary firm in the Mid-Atlantic, working on campus planning and design for colleges and universities. Approaching the landscape with a reporter’s curiosity, Heather has a special passion for permaculture design, nature play and outdoor learning environments. A SITES-accredited professional, Heather is a licensed landscape architect in Texas and Maryland.