- Sheet
- N° 31 / IRIS
- Scale
- 1:1 — in section
N° 31 · IRIS · Landscape Architecture
Ground,read in section.
Mara Vessel grades land the way a hydrologist reads ground — terrace by terrace, horizon by horizon. A small Rotterdam studio for civic edges, reclaimed coast, and gardens that show their own strata.
The practice
We design the part of a place you walk on, not the part you photograph. The drawing that matters is the section — what the ground does when it rains, floods, freezes, and grows back.
- 14
- years in practice
- since 2011
- 9
- countries graded
- EU · US · UK
- 31
- sites delivered
- civic & coastal
Site ledger
The poetry, measured. Every site logged in figures we can stand on.
- Re-graded flood edge
- 11.4km
- Soil profiles mapped
- 47horizons
- Earth moved
- 84,300m³
- Native species reintroduced
- 312species
Living terraces along coastal & harbour fronts.
11.4 km, Re-graded flood edge.Pit-logged and replanted to their own strata.
47 horizons, Soil profiles mapped.Cut and balanced on site — net export near zero.
84,300 m³, Earth moved.Keyed to each site's water table and aspect.
312 species, Native species reintroduced.Selected work
Three grading plans we'd build again.
- Plate 01 / 03Coastal · civic flood edge
Tidewater Commons
A reclaimed harbour edge re-graded as a living flood terrace — salt marsh, boardwalk, and a tidal amphitheatre that drowns and resurfaces with the day.
- Location
- Rotterdam, NL
- Year
- 2025
- Role
- Lead landscape architect
- Drainage
- 180 mm/hr
- Plate 02 / 03Residential · terraced
Sediment House Gardens
Three excavated terraces cut into glacial till, each replanted to its own soil horizon so the garden reads as a section through the ground it sits on.
- Location
- Hudson Valley, US
- Year
- 2024
- Role
- Site planning + planting
- Earth moved
- 2,400 m³
- Plate 03 / 03Public · reclamation
Quarry Civic Park
A decommissioned marble quarry returned to the town as a public room — stepped water catchments, drought meadow, and a single magenta survey-line carved along the cut face.
- Location
- Carrara, IT
- Year
- 2023
- Role
- Competition, first place
- Species
- 47 native
About / the principal
Mara Vessel
Founding principal · Rotterdam
- Founded
- 2011, Rotterdam
- Discipline
- Hydrology → landscape
- Studio
- 1 principal · 2 associates
- Registration
- NVTL · IFLA Europe
Trained as a hydrologist before landscape, Mara reads ground before she draws it.
She founded the studio in 2011 after a decade on North Sea coastal-resilience teams — the years that taught her a site is a section first and a surface second. The practice is small on purpose: one principal, two associates, and the people who actually move the earth. Every project opens with a section drawing and a soil pit dug to the water table.
If the ground can't carry the idea, the idea changes — never the ground. That single rule has held across fourteen years and thirty-one delivered sites, from a drowned harbour terrace in Rotterdam to a returned marble quarry in Carrara.
The site already knows what it wants to be. Our job is to read it in section and get out of the way.
Clients & collaborators
- Port of RotterdamPort authority · NL
- DeltawerkenFlood works · NL
- Hudson Valley TrustLand trust · US
- Comune di CarraraMunicipality · IT
- North Sea ResilienceCoastal program · EU
Recognition
A survey log of the work, dated and cited.
- Year 2025ASLA Professional AwardsHonor Award — Tidewater Commons
- Year 2024Topos Landscape ReviewFeatured studio profile, Topos 127
- Year 2024World Landscape ArchitectureCivic category, shortlist
- Year 2023Europan EuropeSite Strategy, first place
- Year 2022Dutch Design AwardsHabitat, nominee
Get in touch
Tell us about
the ground.
Civic, residential, or reclamation — if there's a site and a section, there's a conversation. Send a sketch, a survey, or one honest paragraph about what the land is doing now.
Studio, directstudio@plinth.land- Reply
- within 2 working days
- Studio
- Rotterdam · CET
- Taking on
- 2 sites · 2026