Perspectives: Anita Bueno
Anita Bueno is a licensed landscape architect and a certified Feldenkrais practitioner®.
Anita has integrated the two professions, exploring the relationship between thought, movement, and the internal and external environments. For 10 years, she designed recreation areas for the US Forest Service, and for another decade she founded and directed BuenoLuna Landscape Design, a residential design/build firm primarily focused on mitigating climate change through ecologically designed landscapes. Chronic illness shifted her path, leading to her practice of mindful self-awareness and to teach the Feldenkrais Method of Somatic Education. Anita now uses embodied learning to inform her creative work, her relationship with herself and others, and generally, her overall approach to life.
MARCH 2026
What drew you to landscape architecture?
My path, like most things, was not linear. I did many things before I became a landscape architect. I grew up in NYC within an extended Dominican immigrant family and thanks to affirmative action, I escaped my redlined neighborhood for college in rural upstate NY, where I got a degree in philosophy and religion and Asian studies. I followed my curiosity, which manifested, at various times, as a gardener, a bike mechanic, a welder, a sculptor, a wilderness backpacker, a commercial fisherman and a world traveler. My desire for landscape stewardship, for perceived influence, and to be outdoors drew me to seek an MLA in landscape architecture.
What is driving you professionally right now?
I am drawn to process; how things happen has always been more interesting than the end product. This is fitting because landscape IS the unfolding of process! My current challenge is analyzing how landscape architects work, how we design, how we relate to our clients, our sites, our collaborators and contractors, and how, if we truly embodied being interconnected with all beings, would that change how we work?
What challenge(s) is landscape architecture allowing you to address right now?
The challenge of catalyzing culture change from separation to interconnectedness.
Here is a profession I love that I’m realizing might be fundamentally flawed. How we practice creates an ever widening disconnect between humans and nature, between practitioner and site. We are seduced by speed and convenience (which is true of modern culture in general). Many of us are drawn into the profession by a deep connection to the natural world and then as professionals we spend all our time indoors on screens, even though models and maps can at best only be representative simplifications of our infinitely complex reality. We believe, and with the best intentions, that we can “fix” issues and design “solutions.” Even the language we casually use separates us from land: e.g. “ecosystem management,” or “natural resources” assumes an anthropocentric arrogance of power and control, manipulating and commodifying land and all her gifts. We embrace academic elitism so that we sound smart and professional and intellectual, when what we need is to let go of ego and the quest for accolades, and instead embrace humility and cultivate deep listening skills so we can truly learn what needs intervention and when to get out of the way. In this light, I am using my networks and experiences from 20+ years of practice to spread tiny seeds of culture change, with the hope that something will land and germinate.
What challenge would you give emerging leaders?
Leadership is tricky. To be a good leader you need to be a good follower, you need to listen to your inner authority and to the human and non-human people around you. You need to be authentic, or few will willingly follow you. You need to be vulnerable and be ok with failure (yours and other’s) because that is how you learn. I challenge everyone to be themselves without fear, recognition, or judgement. Be kind. Be comfortable with uncertainty. Be generous and trust in the goodness of others.
Where do you think the profession needs to go from here?
The profession has changed a lot since I started practicing, but one thing that has not been addressed much is the need for new business models that move away from billable hours. In many settings, resting is still a subversive act. Do you want a fast answer or a good answer? Fast is never better and rarely good. What if we let go of our overreliance on virtual tools and were permitted to slow down and allow for something new to emerge? What if we got our hands dirty and were a little messier and more connected to the land and the human and non-human people who build and maintain and use the spaces we create? What if we were to acknowledge the ways in which we are complicit in the culture of separation and othering, and then explore new, more creative and integrative ways of being?
LAF's Perspectives interview series showcases landscape architects from diverse backgrounds and identities discussing how they came to the profession and where they see it heading. Any opinions expressed in this interview belong solely to the author. Their inclusion in this article does not reflect endorsement by LAF.
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