A love of the outdoors. Exploring her creative flair for design. A passion for helping clients realize their vision. For these reasons and many others, WithersRavenel’s Rose Tanksley finds excitement every day working in landscape architecture.
Rose, a Professional Landscape Architect, has moved to downtown Sylva, and will be based out of our Asheville office. She will be offering LA and planning services to public and private clients throughout Western North Carolina.
For Rose, the opportunity to move to the mountains is a bit of a homecoming. Several years ago, she worked in Knoxville, Tenn., and often spent time at cabins in the Smokies. Combine that with her love of hiking and the outdoors, and WNC fits perfectly.
“Some people have paintbrushes, a palette and a canvas,” she said. “My canvas is outside.”
Rose loves working within nature, particularly with how plants relate in the outdoor environment. “My job feeds my need to be creative,” she said.
She also enjoys interacting with clients who see the value in placemaking through landscape architecture. One of Rose’s favorite projects she has worked on is Raleigh’s Inter-Faith Food Shuttle. The nonprofit feeds the hungry in several counties. After learning its farm would need to be relocated, IFFS reached out to WithersRavenel for help designing its new home.
“The client wanted to maximize the farm’s crop production, but also was interested in making the site an inviting place for volunteers and people buying food,” Rose said.
Rose was able to work with IFFS to help plan and design the farm in a way that emphasized utility while also conveying beauty and allowing the farm to be social. The layout of the fields, location of greenhouses and relationship of the buildings were all critical aspects of the design.
In her free time, Rose can’t stay away from plants. She loves to garden, so she can practice her craft and experiment in her own yard. Additionally, Rose and her husband enjoy restaurants and exploring new tastes.
While Rose is moving to WNC, she’ll still be in close contact with the LA team based out of our Raleigh office.
“We (the team) do a lot of learning from each other,” she said. “We’re a diverse group: where we grew up, how we see the world. It influences the decisions we make, when we put a line on a piece of paper.”
Prior to coming to WithersRavenel in 2016, Rose worked for a botanical garden, ran her own business, and worked for a private design firm. She has a Master’s in Landscape Architecture (MLA) degree from Ball State University and a bachelor’s degree in Plant and Soil Science from Southern Illinois University.
To put Rose and WithersRavenel’s Planning and Landscape Architecture team to work for you, contact Rose at (828) 255-0313 or rtanksley@withersravenel.com.