About this site

We're living through a time of massive societal upheaval. We’ve shed old ways of being and we’ve also stepped into new patterns and practices.

As for me, one thing that I’ve begun to do over the past year is to start writing about my passions - interweaving ideas and musings about nature and ecology, urban gardening, hands-on climate action, creativity and mindfulness practices, design-thinking process, and my work as a landscape architect and teacher.

I believe that finding and supporting nearby nature can be a key to revitalizing our cities and realizing a more just, meaningful, and fulfilling way of living in the world. This is the main goal of my writing: I want to find more people who already share that passion or who are interested in jumping into this work with me.

And so I have created a little website where I share my ideas, stories, and reflections.  If you feel like it resonates with you, please consider subscribing!

About Me

Hello! I am Kristen Ford Haaf. I am a landscape architect, gardener, designer, teacher, mother. Since I was a kid, I was entranced with nature and curious about how people are shaped by their environment around them. My lifelong obsession has been imagining and building places that are informed by and centered around nature.

I studied Environmental Science and Policy amidst wilderness backpacking trips in college. I worked in the non-profit sector in North Carolina and Ecuador doing urban gardening and community forestry. I studied permaculture and then went on to study landscape architecture and urban planning with an intense focus on urban ecological design.

To learn more about me and my design studio, Roots First Design, please visit rootsfirst.com.

What do I do as a landscape architect?

In my landscape architecture practice, Roots First Design, we design landscapes of all sizes, but we always aim to repair the ecology of that place and connect the people who will use that space with this little slice of nature. I love this work because I get to study the unique ecological systems and historical patterns of that particular place and then imagine how we can shape it into a more healthy and beautiful environment. I especially love to design urban farms and homesteads, plan for ecological restoration as part of city systems, and imagine outdoor learning environments at schools.

With so many great newsletters out there right now, why should you subscribe to mine?

My writing brings together thoughts about urban gardening, ecological restoration, and city design, with inspiration for mindfulness, creative practice, and daily action steps on global climate and local sustainability.

I’d like this site to be a home for students, dreamers, and anyone else looking to make a difference in the world today, right where they live.

This is what you will find here:

Connection and community. We all want to connect on a deeper level and we’re all looking for a sense of community. If you share interests in urban nature, plants, ecological gardening, green infrastructure, and nature-based solutions in cities, then we will have plenty in common. I’d love to learn from you and I hope you will learn from me. I will create opportunities for collective learning and we will form a ‘community of practice’ together.

Resources and action steps. I want to help you find you own opportunities to ReNature. I write about creative practice and action steps to regenerate the land around you. Each week will offer prompts for you to set tangible goals and to take realistic steps toward those goals. You will also receive learning resources like reading lists, plant lists, and design exercises.

Learning from direct experience. I enjoy my own small triumphs and moments of being in the flow. I will share stories of these successes and reflect on failures. get you further down the road toward “best practices” in landscape architecture, ecological gardening, and restorative land management.

Sign up for the weekly newsletter and become a part of the community committed to ReNature Now.