Based in New York City and established in 2022, Understory Landscape Architecture is currently developing ecological landscape designs for a range of project types and scales. We foster a collaborative environment and engage in a design process that elevates creativity, intuition, beauty, horticulture, and the contemporary expression of ecological systems to create landscapes for people. 

Understory Landscape Architecture recognizes landscape as an opportunity for sanctuary and stewardship. We believe people connect emotionally with archetypal landscapes and native ecologies. Our work is guided by the understanding that the stewardship of dynamic ecologies is a responsibility and a deeply rewarding practice.

EMMA GOODE

Emma’s practice focuses on human experience and ecological design values - rooted in a commitment to dynamic land stewardship, advocating for nonhuman species in the landscape, and creating + protecting access to the natural world for people. She has been a part of Understory since 2023.

She has a Master in Landscape Architecture from Harvard Graduate School of Design and an undergraduate degree in Design, Politics, and Geography from Gallatin at NYU. In addition to practicing landscape architecture, Emma is an actor in independent theater and film projects in NYC.

DANIEL IBBA

Daniel has been based in New York since graduating from the Ohio State University in 2022, and began at Understory in 2025. Outside of landscape, he has an interest in photography and poetry, participating in several workshops around Brooklyn. 

Daniel’s appreciation for Landscape Architecture began in his hometown of Columbus, OH, where the contrast of expansive agricultural fields and the dense urban spaces of downtown sparked an early interest in how different environments can coexist and complement one another.

Deepening his interest at OSU, he graduated with a BS in Landscape Architecture. In school, Daniel spent his summers outdoors observing the native ecology and working at a tree nursery, developing an interest in urban plant communities.

JEFFREY LONGHENRY

A licensed Landscape Architect in New York State with more than 20 years of experience, Jeffrey practiced for many years with Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects, where a research-driven design methodology shaped his approach. He later founded Understory to continue exploring the dynamic interplay of people, plants, ecology, and the built environment.

Jeffrey woke to a love of landscape experiences in childhood, building forts in Midwestern pastures and woodlands. Summer employment detasseling corn in expansive fields at dawn deepened his sense of scale, while an undergraduate degree in Religious Studies introduced him to ideas of sacred space. Later, guiding donors through the awe-inspiring western landscapes preserved by The Nature Conservancy of California, he saw firsthand how land and ecology shapes human connection.

He went on to earn a Master of Landscape Architecture from UC Berkeley, where his connection to landscape merged with an appreciation for contemporary art and architecture. There he developed a particular interest in the clarity of human interventions within natural settings. Drawn equally to cities and nature—though not the car culture in between—he moved to New York City in 2007 and has called it home ever since.

Jeffrey has gained an intuitive knowledge of plants through hands-on experimentation: first in urban gardens in San Francisco’s Mission District and Brooklyn’s Clinton Hill, and now alongside his partner and son on an ecological landscape in the Hudson Valley. Their aspirations include establishing a small nursery for native trees.