Withers & Sandgren, Ltd

Withers & Sandgren is a professional consulting corporation, certified as a WBE/DBE, offering services in Landscape Architecture, Environmental Planning, and Urban Design.  The principals, Lacey Withers and Jan Sandgren have assembled a firm of highly talented people with a diversity of experience. Within this diversity lies a shared vision of applying natural processes and incorporating sustainable systems within projects of any scale.  Much of the principal’s collective years of experience in landscape architecture directly relate to environmental issues and the redefinition of urban environmental practices. Their guideline packages for both drought tolerant, and pavement reducing landscapes such as Landscape and Plant Palette Standards for the Los Angeles River for the County Department of Public Works, and the Cool Schools Technical Guidelines for the Department of Water and Power, and the Los Angeles Unified School District have set standards that many agencies are currently following. Water management, best management practices for the urban environment, erosion control and tree preservation are issues that are addressed regularly within the scope of many of the firm’s projects. Implementations of best management practices typically include the use of native plants, and permeable surfacing where appropriate.  Specific applications include the design and incorporation of fully shaded parking lots, ADA retrofitting in numerous parks, educational interpretive signage design for wetlands, parks, filtration swales, storm drain filtration systems along streets and highways, and bio-engineering methods along river and stream recreational trails.