Jordan Loch Crabtree grew up hiking, cycling, camping and fly-fishing and says his “love of nature created a desire to provide others with a connection to nature in their daily lives.” Studying art and biology led him to “find a confluence in landscape architecture.”

Crabtree continues to find inspiration in art, landscapes and the environment today and has worked in ecosystems as far afield as New York City, the California coastline, Patagonia and the Chesapeake Bay region.

Crabtree’s firm, LOCH Collective, was founded in 2016 and comprises a small team, all of whom are committed to “creating minimalist landscapes where nature is brought into a person’s daily life and where people are drawn out into nature,” he says. Every project starts with “bringing the client deeply into the process,” Crabtree explains, “so we can tell the story of a family’s or client’s landscape in an exceptional and unique manner.” While aesthetics are important, “they are always overlaid on the needs of the client. They are never separate in our landscapes.”

The husband, father of three and community leader continues to share his love of nature and landscape design with clients and other professionals. He has been a featured speaker at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design; the 100 Fold Winter Studio in Whitefish, Montana; and the International Federation of Landscape Architects’ global conference in Nairobi, Kenya. He recently received awards from the Potomac chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) for his 26 East and North Point projects.