Bethany Rydmark
Founder / Principal Landscape Archictect
Bethany Rydmark, an eighth generation Oregonian, brings a unique sensibility to each project. Her future-forward, ecologically-sensitive work is founded in deep knowledge and respect for classic landscape principles and Pacific Northwest ecosystems.
Raised on a grass seed and nursery stock farm on the French Prairie of the Willamette Valley, Bethany witnessed first hand the balance of hard work with nature's cycles of growth, beauty, respite, and renewal. Her overseas studies at Lincoln University in New Zealand and travels to 35 countries and territories around the world provide deep wells of inspiration for her craft and appreciation for regional design.
Bethany is a licensed Landscape Architect in Oregon and Washington and holds a Landscape Architecture degree from the University of Oregon. She frequently works in collaboration with excellent builders and designers throughout the Portland Metro region and beyond. She appreciates the craft of design and quality construction and values the hard work of tending the earth and sharing beautiful spaces with big-hearted people.
Bethany is a founding member of the Pacific Design Collective.
Membership
American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA)
Hardy Plant Society of Oregon
CascadiaNow!
Ruth Bancroft Garden
Portland Art Museum
The French Prairie Connection
Long before Oregon was a state, and many years before the Oregon Trail brought wagons west, my great (x5) grandfather Etienne Lucier retired from his position as a fur trapper with the Hudson's Bay Company and sought to make a new life on the fertile soil between the Willamette and Pudding Rivers. He and his wife Josephte Nouite of the Wakashan Kwak’wala people built a home amongst the Ahantchuyuk Kalapuyans. Starting with a few seeds and tools, they eventually built a robust farm of livestock, peach orchards, and wheat fields, and Etienne became known as the First Farmer of Oregon of European descent.
When fellow French Canadian/Métis settlers joined Etienne and Josephte in creating a new community, their chosen land earned the nickname of the French Prairie. (For more fascinating history, I recommend At the Hearth of the Crossed Races.)
I honor and acknowledge both the native peoples and newcomers to whom my story is inextricably linked, and with this complex legacy, I carry hope for reconciliation through deeper relationships with each other and the water, land and sky that knit us together.
To this day, my extended family lives and farms in the French Prairie region of the Willamette Valley, and my roots grow deep in the same rich soil. It's my honor and privilege to continue caring for the people and the landscapes of the Pacific Northwest.
-Bethany Rydmark