Projects

The design of a healthy ecosystem starts with an understanding of a site’s hydrolic cycle, topography, climate, soil, vegetation, solar aspect, life, and culture. Oona Johnsen Landscape Architecture carefully crafts site design around nature and the needs of the human experience while making responsible efforts to conserve natural resources.

Education

The Carmel River Elementary School, located in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, is an educational institution committed to connecting students to the outdoor world. With the construction of a new administration wing, there became opportunities to further link outdoor education. The landscape areas in...

Carmel River School

CSUMB is located on the former Fort Ord military base with 1,350 acres of land. With the harsh coastal climate, a landscape inundated by invasive plants, and a backdrop of dilapidated military buildings, the campus has had challenges to create a campus identity during its time of expansion. As the...

California State University Monterey Bay

OJ-LA developed a landscape master plan for the Forest Grove Elementary School (RHD) located in Pacific Grove, California. It addresses the school campus’ need to utilize its outdoor spaces more efficiently, integrate new play equipment, explore ways to integrate the existing forest into outdoor...

Forest Grove Elementary Landscape Master Plan

Hillbrook School is a private school of 14 acres located in east Los Gatos nestled in a residential neighborhood serving grades JK through 8. The school is interested in site improvements to help support various outdoor learning activities as well as playground upgrades. Possible activities for the...

Hillbrook School

Laurel Elementary School is a located in the San Mateo-Foster City School District. The school serves grades Kindergarten through 5th grade. OJ-LA in conjunction with Urban Rain Design provided design services for various site improvements such as safe crosswalks at two intersections, as well as...

Laurel Elementary School

A landscape master plan document was developed for Robert H. Down Elementary School (RHD), located in the central California coastal town of Pacific Grove. It addresses the school campus’ need to utilize its outdoor spaces more efficiently, upgrade their play equipment, and solve site storm- water...

Robert H. Down Elementary Landscape Master Plan

Forest Grove Elementary School, founded in 1959, is located in Pacific Grove nestled near forested residential neighborhoods and the Rip Van Winkle Open Space. It serves grades K through 5. Based on the results of the Landscape Master Plan created for the school, a priority area for development was...

Forest Grove Elementary Entry

Robert H. Down Elementary School, founded in 1891, is located in Pacific Grove nestled in a residential neighborhood, but close to the downtown core. It serves grades K through 5, with an approximate student population of 500 students. Based on the results of the Landscape Master Plan created for...

Robert Down Elementary Lunch Area

Hospitality

Casa Munras Hotel is an integral part of Monterey’s history as it was built around the original hacienda of Don Esteban Munras, the last Spanish diplomat to California. The hacienda was built in 1824 and was one of the first built outside the Royal Presidio of Monterey. Over time the property...

Casa Munras Hotel & Spa

Carmel Valley Ranch is a 500 acre estate including a golf course, sports facility with pool, lodge clubhouse with pool, and 144 hotel units with guest suites. Coastal oak woodlands surrounded the facilities which include some magnificent Coast Live Oak specimens. Due to new ownership, renovations...

Carmel Valley Ranch

The 3 acre Cooper-Molera Adobe homestead is located in historic downtown Monterey. The adobe was built by New England sea Captain John Rogers Cooper who immigrated to California and married into a Mexican family. It was built in 1830 using traditional building techniques and some East Coast design...

Cooper Molera Adobe

Commercial

The IMJIN Office Partners is a shared commercial campus with four new office building structures located on the former Fort Ord military facility. Together the stakeholders along with the project team worked together to achieve a LEED rating for the campus. Design opportunities for this campus...

Imjin Office Partners

Uptown Monterey is California’s first LEED certified (Silver) shopping center. One of the key components of the project was the deconstruction of a former building and salvage & reuse of building materials in one of the new buildings. Important aspects of the site design were irrigation water...

Uptown Monterey

Plant species in the landscape consist of a combination of California native and drought tolerant, adaptive species. The appropriate species and placement of plants leads to a planting design that is beautiful, functional, and able to be maintained to keep a consistent neat and tidy appearance...

Rio Ranch Retail

Community

Regarded as the “Grand Central Station of the West,” the Transbay Transit Center will be a significant transportation hub by networking 11 transportation systems together in one place. Working with the large project design team, a 5.4 acre rooftop public park was developed. Responsibilities...

Transbay Transit Center

This new facility supports the sports and recreation needs of a revitalized military housing community in its vicinity. Working with the landscape architects and civil engineers on the project team, goals were to infiltrate the stormwater on site and provide a water reuse system. A bioswale network...

Ord Military Community Activity Center

The Watsonville Water Resources Center supports a joint water recycling project between the City of Watsonville and the Pajaro Valley Water Management Agency. The facility provides recycled water to farmers throughout the south Santa Cruz and north Monterey Counties. This project reduces the need...

Watsonville Water Resources Center

Cayuga Park is a neighborhood park and playground in San Francisco, at the edge of the Cayuga Terrace neighborhood. The aesthetics of Cayuga Park is largely the creation of Demetrio Braceros, an employee of the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department. Braceros worked on the park for over 20...

Cayuga Community Center Green Roof

The Pacific Grove Community Center is located within the Greenwood Gulch Watershed and is a resource and gathering place for many residents. It provides the perfect opportunity to showcase examples of Low Impact Development (LID) techniques from the RainScapes Rebate Program. This demonstration...

Pacifc Grove Community Center

As part of the RainScape Rebate Program, a front corner planter area at the Pacific Grove Natural History Museum was redesigned to incorporate a demonstration of low impact development landscapes. There was an opportunity to tell a story about how a raindrop travels from the sky, on the museum...

Pacific Grove Natural History Museum

Lovers Point Park is an iconic landmark in Pacific Grove. Visitors to the Central Coast flock to the scenic open space, beaches, and sculptural rock outcroppings the park provides. Furthermore, it marks the terminus of a regional recreation walk and bike trail. To better route visitors to the...

Lovers Point Coastal Access and Park

Pacific Grove residents contend with a number of landscaping challenges: drought conditions restrict availability and use of potable water; non-native plantings are slowly being replaced with native species to ameliorate coastal erosion; and state and federal regulations of the Monterey Bay Marine...

Pacific Grove Landscape Guidelines & Plant Palette

Housing

The development of the Beachwood Neighborhood was the first of its kind in the United States. Fort Lewis, located southwest of Tacoma, Washington, was granted government money to enhance all twelve of its existing neighborhoods with the goal to increase the quality of living on post. This includes...

Fort Lewis Beachwood Neighborhood

Lower Stilwell Neighborhood consists of renovated military housing in Fort Ord consisting of mainly duplex units. The renovation includes plumbing retrfits to collect graywater from the showers, bathroom sinks, and washing machines of strategically selected units. The collected graywater is then...

Lower Stilwell Neighborhood

The Fanoe Vista Townhome Apartments is a newly constructed 44-unit residential housing development affordable to low-income families. The Fanoe Vista Townhome Apartments are located on a rectangular shaped parcel totaling 3.5 acres and zoned multifamily residential. The location of the subject...

Fanoe Vista Townhomes, Apartments & Community Center

Health

Natividad Medical Center has the only acute rehabilitation center in the County of Monterey. The center assists patients and their families transition from an acute hospital setting to their home environment. There are three walled, courtyard gardens within the facility which appear outdated and...

Natividad Hospital ARU Courtyard Gardens

The Santa Clara Valley Medical Center receiving and support building was a design build project with Hensel Phelps and Fentress Architects. It is a 3 story high building with a one level below grade. It provides facility infrastructure for the new main hospital including a new cafeteria, a dock...

Santa Clara Valley Medical Center RSC Building

The Forest Hill Retirement Community is a full service retirement community providing residential care, including independent living and assisted living located in Pacific Grove, California. There is a portion of the property that was left as an oak woodland garden, but has been neglected and...

Forest Hill Retirement Community

The Community Hospital of the Monterey Bay Peninsula Wellness Center is part of a phased complex of roughly 9.5 acres. The first building constructed is a facility focusing on rehabilitation, therapy, training, and exercise studios. Additional buildings in the complex will include office spaces and...

Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula Wellness Center

The Community Hospital of the Monterey Bay’s Ryan Ranch Outpatient Campus went through a use permit/planning submittal for the construction of an additional medical office building approximately 60,000 square feet in size. This building would be the third building to the medical campus. Site and...

CHOMP Ryan Ranch Medical Office Building

A RainScape is a landscape or design technique that helps slow and clean stormwater runoff from individual properties, called Low Impact Development (LID). The RainScapes program promotes and implements projects which help to retain stormwater runoff on site and improve water quality on individual...

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