Emma Petersen
Designer

Emma grew up on a small vineyard in Upstate New York, which sparked an appreciation for plants at all stages of their lives and a love of color.

She started her studies on a broad scale, studying city and regional planning at Cal Poly SLO, but she liked the parts where she got to draw best. After forcing her way into a few landscape architecture classes, she decided to pursue a Masters of Landscape Architecture degree from the University of Washington. In Seattle, she worked for a departmental lab and worked on many different green infrastructure projects from living walls to floating wetlands. After graduating she did an internship in Copenhagen where she worked on projects of all different scales, but found she loved working on details and smaller projects which led her to Arterra when she moved back to the US.

As a designer, Emma believes that access to spaces that are beautiful and biodiverse inspire people to care more about the environment around them. She finds it exciting to work for a studio that brings that kind of inspiration into the home.

Outside of work, she can be found trying to find the best pad thai in San Francisco, finding sunny spots to read in, doing film photography and going on long bike rides.