Profile

Photo by Rob Cardillo

Thomas Rainer is a registered landscape architect, teacher, and writer living in Washington, D.C. Thomas is a passionate advocate for an ecologically expressive design aesthetic that does not imitate nature, but interprets it. His planting designs focus on creating a modern expression of the ground plane with a largely native palette of perennials and grasses. Thomas has designed landscapes for the U.S. Capitol grounds, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, and The New York Botanical Garden, as well as over 100 gardens from Maine to Florida.

Thomas received his Masters Degree from the University of Georgia. Thomas has worked for the firm Oehme, van Sweden and Associates and currently is a Principal for the firm Rhodeside & Harwell. He has a broad range of experience in project types ranging from intimate residential gardens to expansive estates, rooftop gardens, botanical gardens, public display gardens, large-scale ecological restorations, and national memorials. His work has been featured in numerous publications, including The New York Times, Landscape Architecture Magazine, Home + Design, New England Home, Maine Home + Design, and the Hill Rag.

Mr. Rainer is an accomplished landscape architect with extensive experience in the design of appealing civic spaces, including government plazas and grounds, streetscapes for prominent boulevards and avenues, and public parks and gardens. He is a leading practitioner in the development of urban stormwater solutions that help to create vibrant public spaces. In addition, he is a specialist in applying innovative planting concepts to create low-input, attractive, and ecologically-functional designed landscapes. His recent work focuses on the artful interpretation of wild plant communities into designed plantings that thrive in the context of towns and cities. He teaches planting design for the George Washington University Landscape Design program and regularly speaks to audiences throughout the country on sustainable planting design. He is currently working on a book for Timber Press with Claudia West about native planting design.

This site is a blog about the form, meaning, and expression of designed landscapes.  The articles posted here represent only the opinions of the author.  Grounded Design is not a business site nor an advertisement of design services. 

To contact Thomas, you can email him: thomas@phytostudio.com, or you can connect at his Linkedin page.  Or follow him on Twitter https://twitter.com/ThomasRainerDC

See The New York Times feature of Thomas Rainer written by Michael Tortorello.