Lookout is a licensed landscape architecture, art and botanical design studio based in Portland, Oregon and working primarily throughout the west coast.
We are
spirited, curious plant and people lovers, artists, builders and thinkers ready to experiment, get messy, really (really) observe, and create spaces that champion human well-being and plant stewardship.
our studio
Lookout was named after vistas found in nature where we can nestle into the landscape overlooking an expansive view: places that inspire a forward-thinking mentality while still being grounded by the intimate, tactile connections to our surroundings, where you can dream of what has yet to come. Our studio is licensed in the state of Oregon and is a certified women owned business (WBE).
we design
with the future in mind, always considering climate and seasonal changes as inevitable but exciting challenges for our work. We create adaptable and evolving places to feel calm, inspired and joyful, spaces to comfortably coexist with both our fellow humans and other living species.
Alana MacWhorter
PLA, ASLA
Farmer’s daughter raised between two islands (in the Puget Sound + in middle of the Pacific) who loves lava rock as much as a cushy northwest forest floor, heads south to Nayarit, Mexico whenever she gets a break to work on her family’s off-the-grid home in the jungle, once drove a sports car full to the brim of flowers through Tuscany to adorn a wedding, will always encourage the group to take the happy hour sunset walk through the garden.
Alana’s design background focuses on off-the-grid design build projects, climate adaptive design, urban planning + design, botanical installations and event design.
MLA + MCP,
University of California, Berkeley
BA Environmental Design + Policy,
Scripps College
OR License # LA1111
Melanie Bowerman
PLA
Native Angeleno, loves color and reflective objects just as much as any raccoon, has her bare toes in the mud as much as possible, loves the smell of guavas, crushes wine grapes with her feet every fall at her parents tiny hobby vineyard, once convinced 8 strangers to help lift an 800 pound rootball out of her backyard into the back of a pickup (I knew we could do it!), believes truly that getting to know our neighbors is necessary for our future survival and well-being, not to mention quite fun.
Melanie’s design background has centered on public interest design, education, transitional housing, greywater systems, public edible gardens and mural work.