Field Collective

Alexandra Harker

Alex’s love for California landscapes began as a child growing up in Santa Cruz, California. She has over a decade of experience practicing landscape architecture in the Bay Area, including roles in both the public and private sector. Her dual background in both planning and landscape architecture allows her to transition easily between scales and her work spans master planning to construction documentation and administration.

Alex’s publications include “Landscapes of the Dead: An Argument for Conservation Burial” (Berkeley Planning Journal Volume 25: New Spaces of Insurgency, 2012), “Burnt Leaf AR” (Ground Up Journal Issue 10: Breathe, 2021), and “The Potrero Eco-Patch: An Experimental Framework for Designing and Gardening with Native Plants” (co-authored with Nicki Copley for Pacific Horticulture, 2021).

Alex also practices as a creative technologist whose work explores how technology can assist creative thinking and its potential for reframing how people interact with and perceive plants, landscapes, and ecology. More information about Alex’s creative technology practice can be found at www.alexandraharker.com

Alex lives in the Mission District of San Francisco, where she currently volunteers as a working group member for the SFMTA Potrero Yard Modernization Project, which combines 575 units of affordable housing with a public transit facility on a 4.4 acre lot. She enjoys going on walks around the neighborhood with her husband and 4-year-old daughter.

EDUCATION:

Masters of Landscape Architecture and Masters of City Planning – University of California, Berkeley

Bachelor of Environmental Design – University of Colorado, Boulder

LICENSES:

Licensed California Landscape Architect #6216

ISA Certified Arborist #WE-11597A

Nicki Copley

Nicki has worked as a landscape designer in both New Zealand and California. Past work has involved public space projects, campus upgrades, streetscapes, master planning and residential gardens. In addition to New Zealand and California, Nicki has lived and worked in Canada, England and Scotland, in constant heat, endless snow, dreary grey and everything in between, from highly urban locations to within remote mountains. This varied experience has given her an acute appreciation for the importance of site-appropriate and performative landscape design: spaces that protect against the hot sun or biting wind; materiality that is appropriate to the site’s expected or potential function and usage; and planting design that is both climatically and ecologically beneficial. 

To Field Collective, she brings her strong conceptual development skills, her software and graphic expertise and a passion for creativity.  Nicki is a New Zealander by birth and currently lives in Berkeley with her husband and their 4-year-old son.

Nicki is also the founder and editor of the website Landscape Architecture _Built

EDUCATION:

Masters of Landscape Architecture  – Lincoln University, Lincoln, New Zealand

Bachelor of Design, Visual Communication – CPIT, Christchurch, New Zealand