SARA ART 2025 PANEL DISCUSSION
ART & ARCHITECTURE IN LANDSCAPE
Christian Bailey, SARA, AIA, LEED AP - Moderator
Christian Bailey is the current SARA NY Council President and is the Civic & Community Market Leader for Hanbury Design. As the Civic & Community Market Leader, Christian Bailey is guiding work at the intersection of architecture, community, and the shared urban experience. Over the past three decades, he has led projects across housing, hospitality, and civic sectors, each shaped by a belief in the power of design to connect people and place. With a background in construction, teaching, and the arts, Christian brings a multidisciplinary lens to his practice, seeking clarity and simplicity in both form and idea. A co-founder of ODA and former Director at Morris Adjmi Architects, he also advises the U.S. State Department’s Overseas Building Operations and teaches at NYCCT, NYIT, and Virginia Tech, where he helped launch the Diplomacy Lab Studio.
Gabriel Smith, FAIA, LEED AP - Panelist
Gabriel Smith is a New York City based architect with experience in the US, UK, Europe and South America. With over one million square feet of built works in the public realm, he has focused on complex projects for cultural, education, commercial and government clients. He holds degrees in architecture from Harvard and Tulane. In 2015, he was elected to the American Institute of Architects College of Fellows for his contributions as a designer. He is a LEED AP with completed Net Zero Carbon and LEED Platinum projects. Gabriel started his professional career in London at Norman Foster’s office. His two plus decades designing museums started at Eskew+Dumez+Ripple where he worked on the firm’s key projects including the ULL Hilliard Art Museum and IGFA Museum. More recently, Gabriel has led the major museum projects at Allied Works and Thomas Phifer and Partners including the Museum of Modern Art Warsaw, Glenstone Museum, North Carolina Museum of Art, Corning Museum of Glass. Integral to his practice is both hands on and academic exploration which has included painting, furniture design and teaching / lecturing at Cornell, Columbia, Tulane, Parsons, Harvard and Syracuse.
Marilee Hanks, LEED AP - Panelist
Marilee Hanks is a Landscape Architect and Principal, Managing Director, and Owner of Knot Studio, based in Portland, OR. A passion for plants and place-making took root at an early age for Hanks, who would later pursue degrees in science and landscape architecture at the University of Michigan. In a woody plants course taught by the famous botanist Burt Barnes, she found her true calling—blending science, design, and stewardship into a career dedicated to shaping landscapes that foster both biodiversity and human connection. Since 2005, Hanks has served as a Lead Landscape Architect for U.S. embassies and consulates in more than 30 countries, integrating local ecologies and cultural narratives into diplomatic spaces. As the Managing Director of Knot Studio, Marilee leads a team of professionals who resist the traditional divide between nature and human concerns. Their work is rooted in the understanding that environmental struggles are deeply intertwined with issues of equity, economics, and politics. Hanks remains steadfast in her mission: to create landscapes and graphic installations that inspire connections to nature, to each other, and to the evolving world we all share.
Keith Oliver - Panelist
For over forty years Keith Oliver has dedicated his career to public betterment, both as a landscape architect and a public artist. He creates memorable spaces and experiences, frequently with non-traditional materials and approaches. His projects reflect a sense of place, culture, environment and regional identity. He is a maverick in the best sense of the word, often charting his own course to take on new challenges, with a rare ability to effectively collaborate with just about anyone. As a landscape architect Keith successfully navigated both the public and private sectors, including 19 years leading his firm InSites in Norfolk, VA. His work is informed by, compatible with, and supportive of environmental factors at work, regionally and on a site-specific basis - primarily in two very different and extreme biomes, the Sonoran Desert and Chesapeake Bay coastal plain. His public projects include linear parks and greenways, roadways and regional infrastructure, community revitalization and supportive housing, campus planning and design, public art advocacy and production. Keith’s public art commissions include a walking path woven from rubber tire treads; a flying tapestry of flip flops and hula hoops; a glass marble mosaic throne in a zoo; glass and shell mosaics in a child witness waiting room in a courthouse; mosaic and metal gateway sculptures in parks and roadways; and have included temporary exhibits in an airport skylight, a botanical garden and a sculpture park. They engage through intricate texture, pattern and color and he unapologetically strives to bring a smile, a sense of wonder or a different appreciation of a place through his art.
Anne Chen, SARA, LEED AP, Landscape Architect, WELL AP - Panelist
Anne Chen is an architect and landscape architect at Gensler. She has a dedication for institutional and public realm projects stems from her dual background in architecture and landscape. She is drawn to community-centered spaces that transcend age and socioeconomic boundaries. Her holistic design approach, integrating landscape and ecology, inspires the future generation of architects.
William H. Dodge - Panelist
William H. Dodge is a multidisciplinary designer, design strategist and conceptual artist based in North Carolina (USA). He is a Cofounder of A Gang of Three (public art and arts planning), Founder of p-u-b-l-i-c (design strategy), and Founder and Director of The Vernon Pratt Project (art non-profit). He has both led and collaborated on projects at nearly every scale and has served as a key advisor to some of the world’s premier design firms. He regularly serves as a visiting critic and lecturer on the subjects of art, architecture, design, technology, and innovation at various institutions internationally. His recent arts and arts planning work has been recognized with numerous awards and honors by Google, Fast Company, the Architect’s Newspaper, Architizer, Architecture Hunter, the American Planning Association, the American Institute of Architects, the World Architecture Festival, and the Institute for Public Art, among others. He currently sits on Fast Company’s Impact Council and the Advisory Board of the Gregg Museum of Art & Design.
Cristobal Mayendia, AIA - Panelist
Cristobal Mayendia is an experienced designer with a demonstrated history of working in the architecture & planning industry. Currently with Perkins Eastman. He is skilled in Healthcare/Science Research Design, Mixed Use Development, Interior Architecture, and Urban Design. Cristobal is a strong professional dedicated to delivering high quality design solutions with care and craft, striving to deliver sustainably and imaginativity.