Patricia Nelson O'Brien (1946-2019)

Patricia O'Brien was a landscape architect and Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture at the College of Environmental Design (CED) at UC Berkeley. She received her Bachelors degree from UC Berkeley in 1968, and her Masters of Landscape Architecture from UC Berkeley in 1975. Her masters thesis was on the history of the Filoli gardens in Hillsborough, CA. After graduation, she worked for Richard Schadt & Associates from 1975-1977, The SWA Group from 1977-1979, and EDAW Inc in 1979. O'Brien then began teaching as a Lecturer at CED in both the Department of Architecture and Deparment of Landscape Architecture from 1979-1981. She continued teaching in the Landscape Architecture department while forming a partnership with Barbara Meacham; the firm Meacham O'Brien was active from 1979 unti 1990. The firm received many residential landscape commissions throughout the 1980s, as well as some larger commissions for Kaiser Permanente medical centers and the San Francisco International Airport.

After attaining the rank of Assistant Professor in 1987, O'Brien stepped away from teaching in 1990 to form her own firm, Pat O'Brien Landscape Architecture (POBLA). The firm was based in San Francisco and the majority of their projects were in the city and surrounding Bay Area. The firm worked on additional projects for the San Francisco International Airport and Kaiser Permenente medical centers, as well as expanding to work on Pac Bell Park (with the Office of Cheryl Barton), Mission Bay site plans (with SMWM), St Francis Wood master plan and Park, Santa Clara Public Library, the San Jose Civic Center, and projects for the University of California at Davis, Santa Cruz, and multiple projects at UC Berkeley, including the Bauer Wurster Courtyard competition. Patricia O'Brien was the design principle for the majority of the firm's projects, and maintained POBLA as a sole proprietorship with up to six employees; it was a registered Woman-Owned Business with the City of San Francisco and the State of Cailfornia. The firm was known for modernist design, urban design, site planning, and was one of the first to recognize and explore water-conscious landscape and hardscape design. She continued to teach at UC Berkeley, for both the undergraduare and graduate design studios from 1996-2001. She retired in 2008, and died in 2019.

From a description of the firm, circa 2000:

"We employ a spatial, pictorial and emotive approach to landscape design in our attempt to consider each project without design prejudice. Landscape is continuous, and a design in this continuum must be consiously a part of it or intentionally set itself apart. Considering this context, the program for use, the architecture and technical constraints, we proceed to design descriptively - a scheme can be witty, serene, or graphic. ... In the end, a desing becomes an experience in time. While our ideas are conceived on paper, the reality of a design is realized in physical and visual participation. As designers we understand why each thing is done, what each piece accomplishes and the consequences for personal experience."