FORGE Landscape Architecture

is a research and design studio working at the intersection of agriculture, carbon, and design.

We design landscapes - gardens, civic landscapes, forests, and farms - that are culturally and ecologically responsive to the climate crisis.

Our unique approach enlists the regenerative potential of plant life to increase the fertility of soils and sink carbon where it belongs. This work, guided by an ethic of thrift, honors the carrying capacity of planet earth.

Our practice is a hopeful one - we envision a future characterized by widespread respect and care for the lands we inhabit.

We work with clients who believe landscapes should be as life-sustaining as they are beautiful. Our partnerships include visionary land-owners, innovative non-profit organizations, and forward-thinking institutions committed to creating landscapes with extraordinary transformative potential.

We believe good design is grounded in research. Our data-driven approach delivers results that are as measurable as they are inspired. We offer expertise in soil organic carbon monitoring, above ground carbon monitoring, and biodiversity monitoring for clients who are interested in documenting the tangible contributions to carbon management and wildlife habitat that their land provides.

Phoebe Lickwar MLA, FAAR, PLA

Founding Principal

Phoebe Lickwar is founding principal of Forge Landscape Architecture and Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the recipient of the 2022 Garden Club of America Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture.

Phoebe is a registered landscape architect whose experience in the design and construction of culturally significant gardens and civic landscapes includes the National World War I Memorial at Pershing Park in Washington D.C., the Newport Beach Civic Center Park, Glenstone, and the National September 11 Memorial in New York. She seeks to push the boundaries of design through a creative collaboration with plant life, synthesizing regenerative strategies and aesthetic experience. 

Phoebe’s research and scholarship explores the deep relationship between agroecology and design, recovering farming as a design practice deeply embedded in contemporary social and ecological crises. She is co-author, with Roxi Thoren, of the book Farmscape: The Design of Productive Landscapes, which describes the history of agriculture within landscape architecture and reveals the diversity of current design practices that have shaped productive farms as sites of beauty, community, ecological conservation, remediation, and pleasure. Her current book project is focused on traditional and contemporary climate resilient agroforestry in Italy.

Phoebe’s writing has been published in Places Journal, LA+ Interdisciplinary Journal of Landscape Architecture, and the Journal of Landscape Architecture. Her photographic work has been featured in galleries and museums in the United States and Italy, including the Fondazione di Sardegna in Cagliari, Sardinia, the Rayko Gallery in San Francisco, the Photographic Resource Center at Boston University, and the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts in Little Rock.

Phoebe graduated with honors from Harvard College, where she studied art history and visual and environmental studies. She received a master’s degree in education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a master’s degree in landscape architecture from the Rhode Island School of Design.