Wildling Design Studio

Wildling Design Studio’s Owner and Principal, Jessica Hall, began architectural studies at Princeton University. As a youth, she was inspired by great public spaces in the Los Angeles area, and observed the role of the physical environment in shaping community pride, interaction, and health. The more critically she looked at her environment, she was drawn to understand the forces shaping the physical environment, from economic drivers to systemic racism to natural processes. Throughout her work life, she sought work environments that gave her the opportunity to serve community, as a teacher in the LA Unified School District; in an architectural firm that focused on public projects; nonprofits; a public agency; and with landscape architecture and engineering consulting firms that deliver projects to government agencies and nonprofit organizations. 

With an ongoing interest in the importance of public space as an expression of democratic and community values, Ms. Hall over time evolved an appreciation of the role of nature and natural processes in shaping sense of place and culture, providing outlets for exploration and solace, creating formative childhood experiences, and maintaining the web of life that sustains us.  

Since 2001, she has focused on the integration of natural processes – specifically urban streams and watershed processes – into the built environment as foundational to her work. She has previously summarized this ecological ethos as, “to reinsert nature back into urban form, to humanize the city by wildling it”  – the basis of the playful name Wildling Design Studio, which was founded in 2019. Within this framework, she looks for ways to also bring delight and beauty to the senses, while meeting other project requirements and supporting ecosystem values.   

Ms Hall was a 2000 Switzer Environmental Fellow, and has received acknowledgement for her work by the City of Los Angeles (Earth Day Award) and Santa Monica Bay Restoration Foundation. The Ballona Creek Greenway Plan and Projects that she conceived and led the development of won a Planning Category award in 2011 from the Westside Urban Forum. She has also received Switzer Foundation Leadership Grants in 2002 and 2021 in concert with North East Trees and the Waterways Restoration Institute.