Ross Martin Design
We create gorgeous, resilient places to bring people joy through their connection with nature. Our landscape-architectural garden designs grow out of intimate understanding of client and stakeholder needs alongside deeply rooted appreciation of best possible sustainable applications and practices. Ultimately, we strive to achieve a balance where the environmental benefits far outweigh the resource costs with every project resulting in maximal beauty. The fundamental goal is a totally immersive guilt-free sensory delight in every ecosystem, dazzling with light, shadow, color, texture, fragrance, movement, and sound.
In it for the long haul, we aim to care for all our habitat creations through enduring stewardship agreements, as all gardens require maintenance on some level. Where this is not possible, we provide guidance and consultation. Some people want to do it themselves; this we love. If even one person is inspired to become a gardener, we are doing our job. Gardening is a noble pursuit. Especially in this day and age. Each project is a unique relationship between designers, creators, caretakers, and users.
Though we can handle all aspects of design, installation, and maintenance of garden spaces we make in many instances, our team flourishes in collaboration. We happily work with contractors, experts, artists, and other designers to achieve the maximum value with least expense. Our team is insatiably curious and always looking to learn new ways of seeing, doing, and being.
Though much of our work is in the luxury sector, we are also well grounded in community. Some of the work we are most proud of and invested in is within our Lower East Side Community Garden District. Here we have created a self-sustaining regenerative garden with an off grid permaculture laboratory and environmental resource center to inspire a whole new generation of environmental gardeners. We are also a LGBTQ owned business.
And our latest collaboration with an international permaculture conglomerate has expanded our practice globally and were on one of nine international teams to complete the Bay Resilient by Design Challenge.
Gardens are a narrative experience, guiding people through the landscape, connecting them to flora and fauna. Let us help tell your garden story.
Ross Martin
Ross Martin is from out west with a profound connection to the natural environment. Holding a BLA from University of Arizona, and a MLA from the University of Minnesota, with a minor in applied ecology, his master thesis is titled Suburban Residents’ Perception of Wildlife Habitat in Their Yards. He takes his experiences, skills, and proclivities to one of the densest, diverse neighborhoods in the country, Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Ross Martin Design, his landscape architectural garden firm creates beautiful places and promotes permaculture and sustainability. All the while he serves La Plaza Cultural Community Garden and Park, taking it off grid producing a bio-swale, hugel-kultur bed, food forest, and solar pavilion.
Martin’s garden memoir, Viva La Plaza and associated articles, are about these endeavors. He also pens blogs called Weed of the Week, humorous musings on what constitutes a weed. In Off the Rails, a train journey around the country, Martin perpetually visits, interviews, and writes about others doing similar works while being filmed by renown videographer, Alvah Holmes.
Martin is a member of the Permaculture and Social Equity Team, the only grassroots one of nine international teams to complete the Resilient by Design Bay Area Challenge. Always striving to learn how to regenerate more and better, Martin continues his permaculture studies with design certifications from the Center for Bioregional Living and the Urban Permaculture Institute of San Francisco. He is a master of digital design through Adobe Illustrator and is studying to become certified in the Soil Food Web program. Most recently, he is proud to have joined the United Designers International Permaculture conglomerate as lead designer.
Moving ever onward and upward but always staying grounded. Have him help you reach your permaculture garden dreams!
Eric Hoffman
Ross Martin is from out west with a profound connection to the natural environment. Holding a BLA from University of Arizona, and a MLA from the University of Minnesota, with a minor in applied ecology, his master thesis is titled Suburban Residents’ Perception of Wildlife Habitat in Their Yards. He takes his experiences, skills, and proclivities to one of the densest, diverse neighborhoods in the country, Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Ross Martin Design, his landscape architectural garden firm creates beautiful places and promotes permaculture and sustainability. All the while he serves La Plaza Cultural Community Garden and Park, taking it off grid producing a bio-swale, hugel-kultur bed, food forest, and solar pavilion.
Martin’s garden memoir, Viva La Plaza and associated articles, are about these endeavors. He also pens blogs called Weed of the Week, humorous musings on what constitutes a weed. In Off the Rails, a train journey around the country, Martin perpetually visits, interviews, and writes about others doing similar works while being filmed by renown videographer, Alvah Holmes.
Martin is a member of the Permaculture and Social Equity Team, the only grassroots one of nine international teams to complete the Resilient by Design Bay Area Challenge. Always striving to learn how to regenerate more and better, Martin continues his permaculture studies with design certifications from the Center for Bioregional Living and the Urban Permaculture Institute of San Francisco. He is a master of digital design through Adobe Illustrator and is studying to become certified in the Soil Food Web program. Most recently, he is proud to have joined the United Designers International Permaculture conglomerate as lead designer.
Moving ever onward and upward but always staying grounded. Have him help you reach your permaculture garden dreams!