Christina Teply

Associate

Christina’s perspective on design is informed and enriched by her years in the world of the performing arts, both as a performer and as a manager of performing artists touring around the world. She sees a strong parallel between the universal languages of music and the natural world, as they share elemental components – shape, color, form, texture, pattern, balance – that combine to variously engage, lift, ground, nourish, and excite the soul.

As a landscape designer, Christina keenly explores how the garden plays as symphony, its harmonic whole greater than its elemental components, which star nevertheless: the texture of smooth round river rock, the depth of color in a golden California poppy, the swirling pattern of grain in a wood tabletop, the solid mass of a granite boulder, the murmur of water trickling down a fountain, the rustle of leaves in fall or, unique to the natural world, the phenomenon of scent, whether pungent lavender or intoxicating gardenia. By casting a role in the garden for a range of players, she strives to use sensory experience to reinforce the vibrant connection people have to the natural world.

In her free time, Christina likes to spend time with her family outdoors, gardening, hiking, camping, walking her dog, and attending live performances, wherever they may be.

• Merritt College, Oakland, A.A. Landscape Architecture; Certificate Landscape Horticulture
• University of California, San Diego, B.A. French Studies
• La Sorbonne, Paris, Diploma French Civilization