Joseph James
Joseph James is a registered landscape architect and educator who brings to his teaching more than 15 years of experience designing and constructing civic, cultural and residential landscapes. His teaching often reflects the fundamental connection between landform, hydrology and planting systems and their collective ability to shape the human experience within the landscape. He shares with his students his passion for precision folding and sculpting the surface of the earth and developing elegantly crafted details out of simple materials.
James is an associate principal with Reed Hilderbrand in Cambridge, MA where his work has ranged from developing the master plan for resiliency and climate change for the Houston Arboretum & Nature Center to the renovation of the Blue Garden in Newport, RI. Dedicated to shaping the urban realm, his current work includes the construction of City Hall Plaza in Baton Rouge, LA; a framework plan for the US National Arboretum in Washington, DC; and the landscape for the American Museum of Natural History’s Gilder Center in New York City.
James has been teaching at RISD since 2010 and has also been an instructor at the Boston Architectural College and a critic at Wentworth Institute of Technology.
