Voices of Women in Landscape Architecture: Chenyan Wang, MaraLee Olson, and Bichen Wang

Left to right: Chenyan Wang, MaraLee Olson, ASLA, Bichen Wang

ASLA is sharing the next set of profiles of women in the profession (see the previous installment right here). If you'd like to be featured, the call for submissions remains open, with profiles being shared on an ongoing basis.

Submit a WILA profile!

These profiles will appear on the ASLA Women in Landscape Architecture LinkedIn group, Facebook group, and here on The Field. This post includes: Chenyan Wang, MaraLee Olson, ASLA, and Bichen Wang.

Chenyan Wang

What inspired you to pursue a career in landscape architecture?

I came to landscape architecture because I was trying to understand systems, how nature, power, and human choices shape one another over time. My early training moved between architecture and journalism, between making and observing, between form and narrative. Journalism taught me to ask who benefits and who is left out, and to see cities as political and social systems. But nature did something words could not. It interrupted me, slowed me down, and forced me to confront scales of time and consequence that do not wait for the right language. Nature did something words could not. It interrupted me. Somewhere in that tension, landscape architecture began to feel like the right place to stand.

That understanding deepened through my work in climate resilience, where I began to see landscape not as a backdrop, but as a medium for negotiating uncertainty, inequality, and long-term change.

Who are the female role models who have influenced your career?

I have been shaped by women who lead through both vision and care. As my thesis advisor, Susannah C. Drake, FASLA, FAIA, has been especially influential in how I think about water, infrastructure, and design agency across scales. Working within women led environments has been especially important to me. In those spaces, mentorship extends beyond technical training to include perception, resilience, and clarity in how to move through complexity. I have learned that leadership in this field is not only about authorship, but about holding space, for ideas, for people, and for forms of knowledge that are often overlooked.

What advice do you have for other women pursuing a career in landscape architecture?

Do not wait to feel fully ready before stepping into complexity. This field requires you to move across disciplines and to operate in uncertainty. Learn to work across drawing, data, narrative, and negotiation. Those are not separate skills. They are how you build agency.

Can you share with us a project you are particularly proud of and why?

I am particularly proud of my project Islandscape and Aquatic Urbanism, which explores climate resilience in Pacific Small Island Developing States under rising sea levels. The work begins by questioning the assumption that land is the primary site of urbanization, and instead reframes the ocean as a political, ecological, and infrastructural space.

Focusing on Kiribati, I developed a multi-scalar framework that moves from territorial mapping to community scale interventions. The project examines shifting coastlines, exclusive economic zones, and indigenous navigation systems, and proposes new forms of floating infrastructure, seaweed-based economies, and amphibious settlement patterns. Rather than treating islands as isolated or disappearing territories, the work positions them as active sites of experimentation for future urban systems.

What stayed with me is not only the proposal itself, but the shift in thinking it required. It moved me away from solving toward understanding relationships, between water and land, infrastructure and culture, and governance and lived experience. It also made clear that climate adaptation is not only a technical problem, but a question of equity, sovereignty, and who gets to define the future.

What advice would you give your younger self?

You do not need to become one thing. The instinct to move between writing, research, design, and strategy is not confusion. It is a way of seeing.

Trust that your path will not look linear. It is not supposed to.

Do not confuse being early in your career with being small. Your perspective has value long before you are formally recognized for it.

MaraLee Olson, ASLA

MaraLee Olson, ASLA

What inspired you to pursue a career in landscape architecture?

"Introduction to Landscape Architecture," taught by Julie Bargmann, ASLA, at the University of Minnesota.

Who are the female role models who have influenced your career?

Zaha Hadid

Julie Bargmann, ASLA

Topher Delaney

Kerry Millikin

What advice do you have for other women pursuing a career in landscape architecture?

Have fun. Be bold. You got this.

Can you share with us a project you are particularly proud of and why?

Comprehensive Plan for Three Gaits Therapeutic Horsemanship in Stoughton, WI. I was the landscape architect/equestrian expert hired to the team to design a new heated indoor riding ring and adjoining stable that will allow this non-profit to expand to offer year-round services to individuals and families in the Dane County area.

What advice would you give your younger self?

Close your eyes.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Open your eyes.

You did it.

You're there.

Bichen Wang

What inspired you to pursue a career in landscape architecture?

I think some interests are just born naturally. I have always been interested in outdoor spaces and the built environment. I remember using clay and stones when I was little, pretending I was constructing a wall. I also spent a lot of time in the garden, observing how outdoor spaces changed with time.

I have always loved design, colors, and beautiful things that make people happy. As I grew up, I found that landscape architecture was the perfect combination of all these interests. It is a field that can shape people's daily lives, leisure, and connection to nature.

As I work deeper in this field, I realize that what we do is not only about designing spaces. We are helping make people's lives better through outdoor environments and bringing joy to people's everyday experiences.

Who are the female role models who have influenced your career?

Professor Bing Wang is one of my role models. She taught my real estate class during my master's program at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Although she is not technically a designer, she has always supported her female students in exploring different fields and facing challenges with confidence.

Through her practice and actions, she shows the power of women in the built environment. She encourages us to speak up when women face unfair or disrespectful situations, and she teaches us to think more broadly about real estate, design, and the future of communities.

She has inspired me to be more confident, open-minded, and courageous in my own career path.

What advice do you have for other women pursuing a career in landscape architecture?

There is nothing more important than trusting ourselves-trusting that we are capable of pursuing what we imagine and desire. I feel that this becomes the foundation of our careers: having a clear recognition of who we are, what we value, and what we want to create.

Keep exploring, not only because the world is constantly changing and we need to adapt to new challenges, but also because exploration keeps us curious about the world and the lives around us. I believe good designers need a rich inner world to maintain creativity. The richness in our hearts will eventually be reflected in the projects we work on and the beautiful places we help build.

Can you share with us a project you are particularly proud of and why?

One project I'm particularly proud of is my work on 88 Clinton Street Park and the Mill Creek waterfront area in Massachusetts. Together, they are part of a broader effort to improve public access, open space, and environmental resilience along the waterfront in Chelsea and Revere.

88 Clinton Street Park has already been built and is now serving the surrounding community, which makes the project especially meaningful to me. For this work, I supported the team through design development, grading coordination, graphics, permitting materials, and educational signage.

I'm proud of this project because it shows how landscape architecture can connect everyday community use with ecological resilience-creating spaces that are accessible and welcoming, while also helping people better understand and care for their local environment.

What advice would you give your younger self?

I would tell my younger self to trust the process and not be afraid of a non-linear path. Every experience can teach us something and lead us closer to where we want to go.

Growth takes time, and it's okay not to know everything at the beginning. The key is to stay curious, keep learning, and ask good questions.

Help us keep this series going-submit a profile!

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