Mayer/Reed, Author at Mayer Reed

Carol Mayer-Reed Receives Lifetime Achievement Award

At this year’s DJC Oregon Women of Vision Awards, Mayer/Reed Founding Partner Emeritus Carol Mayer-Reed, FASLA, will be honored with the Lois Cohen Lifetime Achievement Award. The award recognizes Carol’s pioneering leadership in landscape architecture and her lasting contributions to Oregon’s design community.

“What distinguishes Carol’s leadership is her combination of vision and pragmatism. She has consistently brought ambitious ideas into complex, real-world projects through collaboration, persistence and careful attention to people and place,” says Erica Rife, Executive Director of the Architecture Foundation of Oregon and Carol’s nominator. “Her legacy is not only the remarkable places she helped create, but also the expanded vision of what landscape architecture—and landscape architects—can contribute to Oregon’s future.”

Carol established her own landscape architecture practice in 1983 and in 1987 formalized a partnership with Michael Reed, creating the interdisciplinary firm, Mayer/Reed. Her visionary work as Mayer/Reed principal helped shape signature places throughout Oregon and the Pacific Northwest and continues to demonstrate how landscape architecture can be a powerful tool for both civic and ecological transformation. Her portfolio includes the Vera Katz Eastbank Esplanade, Rain Garden at the Oregon Convention Center, MAX Orange Line and the Old Mill District. More recent projects include new plaza and accessible entries at the Oregon State Capitol, the Vista Pavilion at Oregon Health Sciences University and the OMSI District Central City Master Plan and Waterfront Education Park Vision Plan.

Throughout Carol’s career, she has remained invested in the next generation. She was a founding board member of Oregon’s ACE Mentor Program that connects high school students with careers in architecture, construction and engineering. She served on the board of the Architecture Foundation of Oregon, supporting programs including Architects in Schools, and spent nine years serving on Board of Visitors at University of Oregon. Carol is recognized nationally as an ASLA Fellow and continues to contribute to community initiatives throughout the region.

Carol’s legacy is woven into Mayer/Reed. She founded the firm as a women-owned business at a time when women were underrepresented in leadership across the design professions. Today, Mayer/Reed remains a women-owned business and is led by Kathy Fry, SEDG, Shannon Simms, ASLA, and Jeramie Shane, ASLA. Principals and owners Kathy Fry and Shannon Simms are past DJC Women of Vision Honorees.

We are proud to celebrate Carol and this well-deserved recognition of her remarkable career, the practice she built and the lasting influence she continues to have on our profession and community.

Emily Morishita Promoted to Associate

Mayer/Reed is pleased to announce the promotion of Senior Visual Communications Designer Emily Morishita, SEGD, to Associate. Emily joined Mayer/Reed in 2021 as our first Seattle employee, bringing more than 25 years of experience designing and managing public projects.

A thoughtful and forward-thinking designer, Emily applies her strong interest in designing for the public realm to urban and transportation placemaking and wayfinding systems. Her recent work includes the Pacific Science Center in Seattle, the C Concourse Expansion at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, and Portland’s West End Street Plazas, including Pride Plaza and the Darcelle XV Promenade.

We are proud to recognize Emily’s leadership and contributions to Mayer/Reed and look forward to her continued work creating welcoming, connected public spaces.

Mayer/Reed Gallery: Charles “Chuck” Hayden

The latest exhibition in the Mayer/Reed Gallery features the work of Charles “Chuck” Hayden (1927–2024), an advertising illustrator, educator and artist—and relative and early inspiration to Mayer/Reed Associate Debbie Shaw.

A page from Chuck Hayden's sketchbook of a cowboy in a blue shirt on a horse with a lasso. Three horses run beside him.

“I knew him as my mom’s crazy cousin from New York, but we called him Uncle Chuck,” says Shaw. “Always the unconformist, stepping out of line, testing the boundaries, trying to squeeze a tasty bit of life out of every moment, Chuck wrote his own story and inspired us to do the same.”

A collage of sketches from Chuck's ad biz days hung on the wall. Four images show people at drafting tables in various office environments.

The three-part series presents selections from the countless sketchbooks Chuck filled throughout the 1980s and 1990s. The pages were not intended as finished works, but as quick studies of composition, light, color and figures that could later inform paintings and illustrations. The exhibition explores three recurring themes in his life and work: his Western roots and love of cowboys and horses, his career in the New York advertising industry and his lifelong practice of figure drawing.

Debbie Shaw holds up a book illustrated by Chuck Hayden, standing in front of his sketches hung on the M/R Gallery wall.

Through these sketchbook pages, the series offers a glimpse into the curiosity, creativity and unconventional spirit that defined Chuck’s life and work.

Community Helps Shape New Vancouver Park

A Mayer/Reed landscape architect stands with an east Vancouver community member, pointing at the large multilingual display boards at a community engagement event. The boards feature images different types of programming and park uses. Participants marked images they are drawn to with red dots.

Mayer/Reed is designing a new 14-acre community park within the Vancouver Innovation Center mixed-use development. The large, wooded parcel was privately owned and fenced off from the public for decades, and now neighbors are helping shape its future. Together with our partner JLA Public Involvement, we hosted a series of multilingual in-person and virtual open houses that have garnered ideas from across the community. We asked participants: What do you want to see at the new park? How do you want to play and exercise? How do you want to experience and connect with nature?

An image of the undeveloped wooded parcel within the Vancouver Innovation Center. Large fir trees filter dappled sunlight onto a small, grassy meadow.

The input shared so far is informing design options that will be presented to the community in October, with a master plan anticipated in December. We look forward to transforming this long-inaccessible landscape into a welcoming public park for east Vancouver.