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Meet the President and President-Elect of ASLA SoCal02-03-25 | Association News

Meet the President and President-Elect of ASLA SoCal

Introducing the 2024-2025 Leadership Taking the Reins After L.A. Fires
by Keziah Olsen, LASN

Scott Rice, PLA, LEED AP, CASp was inducted as the President of the ASLA Southern California Chapter at the ASLA Conference in October 2024. He will serve until October 2025, when current president-elect Melanie Buffa will step into the role. Photo Credit: Scott Rice, Melanie Buffa

The ASLA Southern California Chapter has new leadership, and their mettle is being tested in a very real way.

Meet Scott Rice, PLA: President at Community Works Design Group (CWDG) and the new president of the SoCal Chapter. Rice has been working in the world of landscape architecture for 26 years, starting in high school when he worked under a landscape contractor and aspiring Landscape Architect at San Bernardino Golf Club. After graduating with a Bachelor of Science in Landscape Architecture from California State Polytechnic University - Pomona in 2002, he began working for CWDG and became a licensed Landscape Architect (PLA) in the state of California in 2005. In 2009, he took a two-year hiatus to apply his landscape architectural experience to the world of skateparks, then rejoined CWDG in 2011, where he has been working since. In addition to excelling in park and sport facility design, Rice is a Certified Access Specialist (CASp) who is contracted by the City of Los Angeles Department on Disability to assess accessibility for the Recreation & Parks (RAP), Emergency Management Department (EMD), the L.A. Fire Department (LAFD), and several other departments.

In an exclusive interview with LASN, Rice recalled how he was drawn into the ASLA community during the COVID-19 pandemic, when he was feeling isolated from his peers both physically and relationally. He remembers that his first ASLA SoCal chapter meeting was over Zoom. Before Rice knew it, he was drawn in to serve as the Vice President of Sponsorship, which he did for two terms. Then, he was chosen as president-elect in 2023 and is now stepping into the long-anticipated role of president.

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As president, Rice wants to gather landscape-minded people together. He commented that Southern California is full of nationally and internationally renowned Landscape Architects who are involved at the national level with the association, but are rarely, if ever, seen by their peers at the local level. Rice wants to change that, namely by dispelling rumors of the clique-like nature the chapter has historically had and replacing it with a welcoming atmosphere that draws in both students and long-time veterans of the profession. Immediately after being sworn in at the ASLA National Conference in Washington, D.C. in October of last year, ASLA SoCal hosted a member appreciation event in Long Beach tied in with the ASLA's 125th anniversary. Rice reflected that the focus on social rather than educational activities at this gathering made it an easy way for members, students, and people who haven't been around to mingle, tell stories, and strengthen the community. He says that more events like this are in the works in addition to the chapter's regular programming, and he hopes they build momentum for a new era in the region.

Barely three months into his role, Rice and the rest of the chapter were confronted with the Palisades Fire and the Eaton Fire that began January 7 in Los Angeles. Trustee Evan Mather, PLA, FASLA and one of the committee chairs lost their homes in Altadena. Many other members either know someone who was affected or were evacuated themselves. Rice's role as a CASp has directly involved him with the recent devastation wrought by the fires. During evacuations, Rice was called in to do an emergency assessment of the evacuation centers to ensure that displaced residents would be safe in their temporary shelters. Before the fires, he had also personally assessed numerous city-owned facilities located within the Palisades Fire burn area, including Fire Stations 23 and 69, as well as the Palisades Recreational Center, Temescal Canyon Park, and George Wolfberg Park: each heavily affected, if not completely destroyed. Rice commented how surreal it was to look at the pictures he had taken during his site visits and compare those with the televised images he was seeing of those same locations.

Even so, the landscape architecture community is rallying to support those affected and position themselves as leading consultants in the rebuilding process. As president, Rice is reaching out to make connections with local associations involved with the design and build industry - like the AIA, NAHB, and BIA - so that any conversations that take place surrounding rebuilding involve Landscape Architects. Rice said, "The wildland-urban interface, especially its landscape, has to be reimagined before we can even think about rebuilding the structures."

Taking the reins on this effort is Melanie Buffa, Senior Landscape Designer at Agency Artifact and president-elect of the ASLA Southern California Chapter. Having grown up in the San Fernando Valley and graduated with a degree in landscape architecture from California State Polytechnic University - San Luis Obispo in 2016, Buffa is passionate about designing accessible public spaces and communities, especially for the Latino community. Over the last nine years, Buffa has worked at various landscape architecture firms, currently functioning as a landscape designer at a firm that focuses on landscape architecture and urban planning. She is working towards becoming a licensed Landscape Architect in the state of California and hopes to do so in the next couple of years. Before the fires, Buffa wanted to use her status as ASLA SoCal's first Latina president-elect to focus on inclusivity in the chapter and the profession at large. While she still plans to start those conversations when her term as president arrives, she has found an additional mission following the fires that began on January 7. Given her passions and the professional focus of the firm she works for, Buffa is ideally situated to lead the charge in laying the foundation for good design during the rebuild process across L.A. County.

While volunteering on the ground during the fires, Buffa heard a lot of misinformation being spread, specifically about the desire to cut down all trees and bushes so that the fire wouldn't have fuel. Though this is an effective short-term solution, the long-term effects of wide-spread action along this vein would be catastrophic. Recognizing this, Buffa started thinking about the role Landscape Architects have in post-fire recovery and wondered how her peers would respond. In her own words: "We need to work with the land instead of trying to make it work for us." As she verbalized her thoughts, she was quickly tapped to lead a Wildfire Task Force. Buffa joked, "I learned very early in the ASLA that if you're asking the question, you're leading the conversation now." Over this year and leading into 2026 when she will take over as president of the ASLA SoCal Chapter, Buffa is determined to bring together the experts on fire to advocate for the principal role of landscape architecture in the planning and rebuilding as well as inform the Landscape Architects involved in that process. When asked in an exclusive interview with LASN about the task force, Buffa summarized, "The needs are immediate and continuous and extremely multi-faceted, so it will take the collaborative efforts of experts across the board to tackle these issues. My goal is for [the Wildfire Task Force] to facilitate that through the lens of landscape architecture."

A forthcoming LASN article will dive into the mission and goals of the Wildfire Task Force as well as ways to get involved. The ASLA Southern California Chapter is also providing resources on their website for assisting with research, education, advocacy, and volunteering efforts. For more information, please go to: https://socal-asla.org/news/

If you are on the Executive Committee of an ASLA Chapter and would like to share your goals for the next year, please email Keziah Olsen at kolsen@landscapearchitect.com or call (714) 979-5276 x124.

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