Heather Clendenin
Director of Landscape Architecture

 

As a licensed landscape architect, Heather Clendenin has over 30 years and a wide range of professional and academic experience. She has taught in the departments of Architecture and Landscape Architecture at UC Berkeley, the University of Michigan, and at the Danish Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen where she was a Fulbright Senior Scholar. She was the program Director for the Landscape Architecture Certificate Program at UC Berkeley Extension for ten years where she initiated and directed the Sustainable Environmental Design and Stewardship Professional Sequence program.

She has been the project designer on a wide range of projects including the Advanced Concepts Center for General Motors in Malibu, Columbia University’s athletic training center in the City of New York, Carousel Park Playground at the Santa Monica Pier, the masterplan for Claremont’s Harvey Mudd College, General Motors Corporate Headquarters in Thousand Oaks, in addition to numerous other corporate, residential, and urban renovation projects. Over the years she has participated in design competitions and is the recipient of several honorable mentions as well as a first place in the first phase of the Peachtree Street International Design Competition.

She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Design from U.C. Berkeley and a Masters degree in Landscape Architecture (MLA) from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design.

Akiko Ono
Instructor

 

Akiko Ono is a professional landscape designer with 10 years of experience. She holds a BA in Art History and an MA in Comparative Cultures from International Christian University in Tokyo, Japan and a Master’s in Art and Architectural History from SUNY Binghamton, NY, where her research focused on sociology and spatial politics of post colonial place-making. Akiko received a Master of Landscape Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania where she received an ASLA Merit Award and the Narendra Juneja faculty medal for excellence in ecological and social ideas. From 2004 to 2011, she has worked at Tom Leader Studio in Berkeley and has been involved in nearly every important project during that period. She has worked alongside Tom on many award-winning domestic and international projects in conceptual design, master planning, design guidelines and design development as well as construction documentation and design implementation. Akiko prides herself on the ability to work at many scales and the flexibility to switch back and forth between the conceptual and technical worlds. Akiko's goal is to work toward realizing built projects that shape the understanding of space in contemporary society in a time where we can be preoccupied with commercial success and quantifiable statistics. Prior to TLS, she worked at the SWA Group in Sausalito where she specialized in large-scale international works in Japan and China. The Sun City Takarazuka project that she primarily worked on was awarded ASLA Northern California chapter honor award in 2006.

Carlisle Becker
Instructor

Carlisle Becker, MLA, was named Honored Instructor at UC Berkeley Extension in 2008. He has had his own landscape architecture firm for 40 years, and has spent 18 years as an educator. He has four years of experience as an elected local official active in regional planning, as well as project-related experience with churches, cemeteries, parks, commercial/industrial facilities, woodland revegetation, aquatic habitat restoration, erosion control and landscape management.

Yasmine Farazian
Instructor

With 7 years of experience at a local San Francisco Master Planning, Urban Design and Landscape Architecture firm, Yasmine has had the opportunity to focus on projects of varying scales. Yasmine's strong design, communication, and graphic skills have allowed her to work as a project and production manager on projects such as The 1st ACT Vision for Downtown San Jose, The NASA Research Park at Moffett Field and The Coldstream Master Plan in Truckee, California. Her most recent work as a freelance Landscape designer includes the vision plan for an 87-acre winery in the heart of California wine country.
In addition to her work as an Urban and Landscape designer, Yasmine is an Instructor at the Academy of Art University, in the Landscape Architecture, Interior Architecture and Design, and Architecture departments. In March of 2012 Yasmine mentored a freshman student design team of 7 to participate in the San Francisco Flower and Garden Show. This team effort resulted in a first place prize (Gold Medal) at the Garden Show, and a placement in the runner ups for People's Choice Award."