All Posts

By Joshua Tripp, Landscape Architect, ASLA — PLACE Landscape ArchitectureLast updated: June 2026 A mountain home in the Inland Northwest sits in a more demanding landscape than almost anywhere else in the country. Steep, forested ground. Freeze-thaw cycles that heave poorly graded soil. Dry Augusts that turn ungroomed slopes into wildfire fuel. Deer and elk that treat a fresh planting bed like a salad bar. And a view — usually the whole reason the house went where it did — th

The Landscape Architecture Design Process: Concept to Completion By Joshua Tripp, Landscape Architect, ASLA — PLACE Landscape ArchitectureLast updated: June 2026 Most people hire a landscape architect picturing the end: a finished terrace, a planted slope, a driveway that finally makes sense. What they rarely picture is the path that gets them there — and that path, not the final rendering, is where a project succeeds or fails. After three decades of work across the Inland No

By Joshua Tripp, Landscape Architect, ASLA — PLACE Landscape Architecture Last updated: June 2026 A lakefront property in North Idaho is one of the most rewarding — and most regulated — landscapes you can design. From our Sandpoint office, we work on shorelines along Lake Pend Oreille, Lake Coeur d'Alene, Hayden Lake, and the smaller lakes that make this region what it is. And the first thing we tell every lakefront client is the thing they least expect to hear: your shorelin

By Joshua Tripp, Landscape Architect, ASLA — PLACE Landscape Architecture Last updated: June 2026 If you are building or renovating a mountain home in the Inland Northwest — a new build above Lake Pend Oreille, a renovation on Hayden Lake, a forested lot outside Coeur d'Alene or Liberty Lake — the landscape is not the thing you do at the end. It is one of the first technical problems on the site, and on a sloped, forested property it is often the hardest. We design these land

Designing a Mountain Home Landscape: A Pacific Northwest Guide By Joshua Tripp, Landscape Architect, ASLA — PLACE Landscape ArchitectureLast updated: June 2026 A mountain home in the Inland Northwest sits on land that does most of the talking. Slope, soil, sun angle, the line of the trees, the way snowmelt moves across the property in April — these decide what a landscape can become long before anyone picks a single plant. We've designed grounds for homes on Hayden Lake, abov