Women in Design: Sheri Sanzone & Valerie Yaw

THE INNOVATORS: Sheri Sanzone and Valerie Yaw, Bluegreen, Aspen, CO

Your landscape designs are often like nothing we’ve seen before. Tell us about what goes into creating an out-of-the-box design.
Pushing the envelope when it comes to materials and how they’re put together is unique to our style of landscape architecture. We also emphasize the use of an outdoor space—and how that outdoor space can influence behaviors. We start by trying to understand how a client may be using an outdoor space (and by helping the client understand that those spaces are also experienced from a home’s interior spaces). It’s an opportunity to solve a lot of problems, which is, in our opinion, where a lot of traditional architectural solutions stop. 

Tell us the latest in high-country landscape design trends.
A huge trend in landscape architecture is connecting the indoors with the outdoors. As the architecture in mountain communities has started to embrace more contemporary architectural solutions, that concept is something people really want to hear about, and it’s becoming a much easier exercise. 

What’s the signature look of a Bluegreen design?
Very clean, strong forms; a refined palette of materials; and general design principles such as repetition, rhythm and pattern, lighting and texture are all elements that we bring to our landscape designs. And, of course, inherent to all of those is sustainability. 

How do you keep your creative juices flowing?
In Aspen, there’s a tremendous art community connected to the Aspen Art Museum and the exhibits curated there. Its members [who have personal collections] are very gracious and often open up their homes to people who want to learn a little bit more about their art. We go to those events and come back to the office and learn how to incorporate what we’ve seen into our design work. 

What has you excited about the future of landscape architecture?
The American Society of Landscape Architects, in partnership with other organizations, has created Sustainable Sites, which is a system for rating the sustainability of building sites and landscapes that’s similar to LEED for Homes. It has advanced to the point that the U.S. Green Building Council has been looking into incorporating it under its umbrella. As a result, there will be growing consumer awareness that this is an important consideration for any project. You can’t just assume that a landscape that looks green is green. 

What’s been most inspiring to you lately?
Right now, we’re really excited that we’re getting these hints of spring—that we’re going to be out on site building landscapes again. It really informs our design work when we can see things being built, then go back to the office and work on another landscape that’s still being designed.