About Matthew Bovee

I came to landscape architecture through the outdoors rather than through design. Growing up in Nebraska, I spent a lot of time walking trails, poking around creeks and noticing how different a place felt in August versus January. It took me a while to realize there was a profession built around asking why places feel the way they do, and how they could be better.

What drew me in was the combination. Landscape architecture asks you to understand ecology, water, soil and plants, but also people: how they move, where they sit, what makes a place feel safe or welcoming. It is part science, part craft and part storytelling. A good project has to work as a system and still feel like somewhere you would want to be.

Studying in Lincoln has shaped how I think about that. The city sits in a landscape that was once largely tallgrass prairie, crossed by creeks and shaped by a climate that tests every planting. Those conditions are not obstacles to design; they are the brief.

Most of my studio work so far has circled around a few themes. The first is planting design, especially plantings that borrow structure from prairie: a grass matrix, layered forbs, deep roots and full ground cover. I have learned as much from visiting the same plantings across seasons as from any class, and I keep notes and photos to track what thrives and what fades. I wrote about the basics in planting design for Lincoln's climate.

The second theme is water. Stormwater design is where landscape architecture feels most practical to me: a well-placed rain garden or bioswale can slow runoff, clean it and bring plants into places that were only pavement. It also teaches humility, because grading and soils punish wishful thinking. My parking lot retrofit project and the rain gardens article both come from that work.

The third is public space in a cold climate. Lincoln winters last long enough that a plaza designed only for summer is only working part of the year. Sun, wind, snow, light and materials all change the design, and I find those constraints genuinely interesting. The winter plaza case study is my most complete attempt so far.

I try to start slowly. Before I draw a design line I want to understand the site: how it drains, where the wind comes from, where people already walk, what grows well and what struggles. That analysis becomes a short written statement of the main design challenge, and every idea after that is tested against it. I explain that process in site analysis before you draw.

After that, I work through iterations in the open — trace overlays, rough models, side-by-side options — and I keep them. They are often the most honest record of how a design developed, and they are what I lean on when I present work. I wrote about that in my guide to building a student portfolio.