SALT

SALT Landscape Architects is a Los Angeles-based design studio that work on landscapes at a range of scales. The firm’s name, derived from “salt of the earth,” reflects the grounding and site-specific nature that we strive for in our projects. We believe well designed landscapes should be poetic, dynamic, and evolving, as well as ecologically sensitive.  Our designs are rooted in the unique character of a site’s individual spatial qualities, environment, history and context. Our work seeks to express the specific enduring qualities of the location, serve the needs of the users, and connects visitors to the land and environment. We believe in collaboration and dialogue. Through collaboration, innovative use of materials, integration of sustainable strategies, and sensitivity to the specific site, we strive to create meaningful and memorable spaces.

TEAM SALT

Allen Compton, Principal

Allen Compton is the founder and principal of SALT Landscape Architects, a studio recognized for designing insightful landscape projects that respond to their context and connect people to the site. He is a licensed landscape architect in the state of California where his clients include Los Angeles Unified School District, the County of Los Angeles, California Institute of the Arts, Pepperdine University, Los Angeles Council District 14, the Trust for Public Land, Snapchat, and the Riyadh Metro in Saudi Arabia. SALT, as part of Agence Ter and Team, recently won the competition to redesign Pershing Square in downtown Los Angeles.

He is a member of ASLA and was recently elected vice-chair of the Los Angeles Department of Transportation Pedestrian Advisory Committee. He is currently providing pro-bono consulting to the Take Back the Boulevard initiative, where he is helping community leaders shape a plan to bring Complete Street improvements to Colorado Boulevard, in the Eagle Rock neighborhood of Los Angeles. He is also a member of the Council District 14 Median Advisory Committee, where he is helping to develop a sustainable, low-water, and low-maintenance planting strategy for medians in the district. Allen is also the co-founder of Los Angeles Landscape Architects (LALA), a programming and networking group focused on landscape issues.

Lauren Grace Hamer, Designer

Lauren Hamer, BA, MA, MLA, is trained as an historian and landscape architect whose professional interest is both the representation and innovation of landscape typologies with a conscious political and social lens. She received a B.A. (Hon.) from the University of Toronto in Architecture and the History of Art and pursued advanced graduate at the University of Texas Center for the Study of Modernism before graduating from the Harvard Graduate School of Design with a Masters of Landscape Architecture. 

Completing internship work in Zurich, Berlin and New York she participated in large park competitions including the IGA Berlin, public plaza and courtyard design, planting and sustainability studies. In Los Angeles she gained experience working on large scale projects on open space programming in Dubai, a major waterfront redesign in Belgrade and civic-scale projectsin Shenzhen and Cairo.  At SALT landscape architects Lauren has had the chance to work on the winning entry for the Pershing Square redesign in downtown Los Angeles with Agence Ter, Paris, and with clients on educational, civic and commercial projects in the Los Angeles area. 

Mike Tramutola, Senior Designer

Mike Tramutola, MLA, RLA, ASLA, is a Senior Designer SALT Landscape Architects. With twelve years of experience at Rios Clementi Hale Studios in Los Angeles and Hargreaves Associates in San Francisco, Mike has completed projects at a wide range of scales from urban to residential scale winning numerous awards in Design, Innovation and Sustainability.  

Mike’s clients have included the General Services Administration, California Institute of Technology, Woodbury University, Stanford University, and NBCUniversal. A California native, Mike is a graduate of Oberlin College and the University of Virginia, and has been a visiting design critic at USC, Woodbury, and California College of the Arts.

Jamie Heitner, Senior Designer

Jamie Heitner, BA, MArch, is a designer with over 15 years of professional experience in architecture, landscape architecture, and urban design. Jamie has worked in both New York and Los Angeles on public, institutional, commercial and residential projects that range in scale and complexity. As a designer at Urban Studio/John Kaliski Architects, Jamie helped research and develop the Crenshaw Vision Urban Design Plan and the Hollywood District Urban Design Plan for the Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of Los Angeles. At Hargreaves Associates, Jamie worked on the Master Plan and design of South Pointe Park, a waterfront park for the city of Miami and an urban plaza in Washington DC. At Studio Pali Fekete Architects, Jamie’s work on an elementary school and library renovation sparked her interest in the importance of learning environments. Jamie is a graduate of Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation and University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Sarah Lindell, Designer

Sarah Lindell has worked in landscape architecture and landscape contracting for the past nine years. She has also worked as a sculptor and fabricor in a large scale public art studio. As a project designer with AHBE Landscape Architects in Culver City, she worked on a variety of public and private projects ranging from parks and streetscapes to open space and habitat restoration. Sarah facilitated community-based workshops, created children’s adventure playgrounds, and managed the integration of sustainable design practices through the Sustainable Sites Initiative (SITES)  for Burbank Water and Power’s EcoCampus.  Sarah is a graduate of UCLA Extension, Los Angeles, University of Vermont and Hampshire College, Amherst, Massachusetts.