Principals

Grant Jones — landscape architect, poet, and co-founder of Jones & Jones — has practiced and preached ecological design for more than 30 years.  He and his Jones and Jones colleagues’ pioneering methodologies in landscape aesthetics, river planning, habitat design, scenic highway design and conservation planning, including the development of new methodologies in GIS modeling, have set the standard for environmentally responsive design and have brought the firm a stream of awards.  Grant’s landscape poetry is recognized as a fundamental to his design approach and integral to his research and scholarship in ecological design and landscape conservation planning.

Over the years Grant has brought his passion, expertise, and eloquence to many signature Jones & Jones projects. These include the Paris Pike Historic Highway in Kentucky, the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum in Tuscon, Disney’s Animal Kingdom in Orlando, the Mountains-to-Sound Greenway in Washington, the Commons Park in Denver and America’s first wildlife highway, U.S. Highway 93 through the Flathead Reservation in western Montana.
                             
Grant received his Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Washington, followed by a post-graduate stint as a poet in Theodore Roethke’s verse writing class during Roethke’s tenure as Poet in Residence at the University of Washington. He received his MLA from Harvard’s School of Design, where he won the Frederick Sheldon Traveling Fellowship to research environmental design adaptations in South America and Western Europe.

Grant is an Affiliate Professor at the University of Washington and served as Director of Education for the Landscape Architecture Foundation. He has held academic positions at the University of California, Berkeley, Harvard, University of Oregon, the University of Virginia, Texas A&M, and Ohio State and has lectured at thirty Departments of Landscape Architecture.

“As a poet I see and hear everything around me as a poetic structure; so I see the whole landscape of a place as the architecture of a poem.  Every landscape seems to have its own code. If you fall in love with it and give it a voice, the poem you unearth from it will forever give you a place to stand.”  Grant Jones

Ilze Jones, co-founder of Jones & Jones, has devoted her career as an architect and landscape architect to both city and nature—to the quality of life of our urban communities, and to the conservation of nature within and beyond the city. 

Ilze embodies an interdisciplinary creativity and skill in which architecture and landscapes are one, inseparable but each with its own clarity and spirit.  Leading a collaboration of design disciplines at Jones & Jones, she has produced a body of work and ideas showcasing stewardship and sustainability of regional landscapes and healthy green infrastructures in our communities.  In her love for the city's built legacy of buildings and public domain, Ilze has applied her artistry as a designer as well as her analytic skills and leadership to develop innovative strategies for streets, squares, memorable public spaces, as well as the architecture of parks and cultural-educational centers.

Ilze’s genius as a planner and designer at many scales is evident in projects including the Mountains-to-Sound Greenway in Washington, San Diego River Park Master Plan, Singapore Botanical Gardens Redevelopment Master Plan, Seattle’s Pioneer Square Historic District and 5th Avenue Streetscape, and the National Museum of the American Indian.

Ilze has served on numerous boards and commissions, including as Chair of the Washington State Capitol Campus Design Advisory Committee and Charter Board Member of the Seattle Historic Landmarks Preservation Board.  She has been a speaker and instructor on topics ranging from “Integrated Restoration: The Next Big Thing for Estuaries and Coasts for the Restore America’s Estuaries National Conference to “Sustainability and Place-Based Design” at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

“To visit a place is to start a dialogue, to formulate an inquiry, to leaf through a new volume of imagery, to sharpen my eye, to see on the fly, to take in the myriad textures, colors, and sounds that go into the making of place. To experience one place is to open the door to another and to discover that there are windows everywhere.  As designers, we are continually interacting with places, both natural and man-made, for design itself is a continuing reinvention and reaffirmation of place. When design speaks from the heart and communicates to the soul, the results are magic.”  Ilze Jones

Johnpaul Jones has a distinguished 40-year career as an architect and founding partner of Jones & Jones.  Earning his Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Oregon in 1967, his design philosophy emerged from his Cherokee-Choctaw ancestors, which connects him to the natural world, animal world, spirit world, and human world.

Mr. Jones’ designs have won widespread acclaim for their reverence for the earth, for paying deep respect to regional architectural traditions and native landscapes, and for heightening understanding of indigenous people and cultures of America.   Johnpaul has led the design of numerous cultural centers and museums with tribes spanning the North American continent, culminating in his 12-year engagement as overall lead design consultant for the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian on the Mall in Washington, D.C.

In the late 1970’s Johnpaul’s designs helped alter the direction of zoological design by blending architecture and landscape architecture to create more natural environments for “captive animals,” and to help educate the public about the animal and natural world around us.  

A Fellow in the American Institute of Architects, his designs have won a stream of local and national awards.  In 2006, Johnpaul received the AIA Seattle Medal, conferred by the Seattle Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, for his leadership in design.  He was also the recipient of the 2006 Executive Excellence Award from the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES).  In 2005, Johnpaul returned to receive the University of Oregon Distinguished Service Award from his alma mater for“not just designing buildings, but creating places that incorporate both the practical and the spiritual, and for heightening human sensitivity to cultural and environmental issues.”

Mario Campos, a senior principal of Jones & Jones, has directed the design of large multi-disciplinary architectural, urban design, natural resources, and wildlife conservation projects for public and private agencies and government organizations and NGOs. His approach to planning and architecture emerges from strong regional, cultural, and traditional sources, closely rooted to the land, the environment, and the community. 

Mario’s professional practice incorporates the principles of participatory design, creating cooperative situations that lead to successful resolution of complex issues through a comprehensive and consensus-reaching public participation process.  Mario’s skills include sound management and planning skills and the ability to communicate with diverse cultural groups and organizations, bringing heightened sensitivity to diverse ethnic groups, cultural organizations, and environmental issues.  His professional experience includes planning and design of cultural and public facilities including zoological and botanical gardens, museums, public places, parks, and cultural centers. 

Mario’s interest in culture-driven design stems from his Basque, Tarahumara, and Mexican heritage.  His use of cultural values to empower communities to express their identity and heritage through design is most evident in his work for American Indian tribes throughout the United States and through his work in Mexico and Latin America.  Mario’s broad experience in interpretive design has helped him create a diverse body of work integrating culture and nature.

Chris Overdorf is a landscape architect and planner with more than 20 years of experience in a broad range of land use projects.  His work includes planning and design, urban design, environmental art, park and recreation design, visual impact assessment, stream restoration, and transportation planning.  A strong proponent of the application of digital technology to land use design, he has extensive knowledge in 3D modeling and animation, terrain modeling, software programming, GIS, database modeling, and GPS.

He attended the United States Military Academy at West Point, where his fields of study were both computer science and remote sensing. While at West Point, he was involved with the continued development of the LandSat satellite mapping application. He then received his degree in Landscape Architecture from Washington State University. 

Chris serves as President of the American Society of Landscape Architects, Washington Chapter.  He is also a member of the American Planning Association (APA), the Construction Specifications Institute (CSI), the National Institute of Building Sciences National CAD Standards Committee, and the National ASLA Professional Practice Institute Committee.  

Dave Matthews has 34 years of experience as an architect and project manager in all phases of design and construction for complex public projects such as the Seattle Central Library with Rem Koolhaas, or as project manager for the Al Ain World Deserts Zoo and Desert Safari Wildlife Park in the UAE.   

Over the course of his career, Dave’s focus has been holistic environmental design and ensuring exceptional project delivery.  His practice has included various zoological, tourism, and visitor facilities, specializing in site-sensitive projects that place high value on the natural topography and landscape, and structures that are harmonious with their environment.  As the author of Jones & Jones’ Quality Assurance Checklists for A/E teams, he ensures that we practice what we preach by fulfilling his ‘perfectionist’ approach to documentation.  Dave is very adept at responding to the needs of program, schedule and cost management, while keeping the team focused on the critical path.  Dave is a board member of AIA Seattle, where he also serves on the Committee on the Environment, and recently moderated a panel discussion on the impacts of climate change.