Ellen Barth Alster is President of Barth
Alster Design, dedicated to practicing sustainable, contemporary landscape
architecture, with a reverence for Southwestern tradition. For over 20 years Ellen has envisioned,
designed, and constructed outdoor spaces from small courtyards and parks to
master planned communities, commercial developments, roadways and regional
plans.
A resident of Tucson,
Arizona since 1993, Ellen's work
capitalizes on the dazzling vibrant colors and textures of the Sonoran desert
landscape. The project site and surroundings are a springboard from which to
design, energized by the challenge of integrating what is already there. She
uses native plants - varied species of prickly pear, cholla, ocotillo, yucca
and agave - as sculptures themselves to group, arrange, and manipulate to
enhance and highlight the project architecture.
Collaborating with artists from across the United States, Ellen's trademark is
to incorporate freestanding sculpture, reliefs, and murals into projects.
Ellen's goal is for the finished design to be functional,
appropriate to the surroundings, and provide an element of surprise and awe. Open
to working on multi-disciplinary teams with architects and engineers, Ellen works
to seamlessly blend the exterior space with the overall project concept so as
to create comfortable spaces for people to use. Proficient in the principles of
water harvesting and low water use landscapes, she is dedicated to offering
clients low maintenance, low water plants for both aesthetic and practical
reasons.
Prior to 1993, Ellen was with TerraDesigns, Inc. in New Orleans. Her projects included restoring the Orleans Avenue Canal
with the Army Corps of Engineers and the Royal Sonesta Hotel in the French
Quarter. While in Washington,
D.C. with Rhodeside, Harwell and Urban
Associates she contributed to high profile projects ranging from sculpture
gardens at the National Gallery of Art and the Hirshhorn Museum,
to the Vietnam Women's Memorial and roof gardens along Pennsylvania Avenue for the international
law firm of Crowell and Moring. She was
also instrumental in preparing design guides for the U.S. Army bases of Fort
Belvoir and Vint Hill Farms, and master plans for Prince George's County,
Maryland, and McLean, Virginia.
Originally from Southfield, Michigan, Ellen earned the Master of Landscape
Architecture at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design and the
Bachelor of Science in Landscape Architecture at Michigan State University
in East Lansing.