Eva Gildea
Eva Gildea is a landscape architect and painter whose work moves between ecological systems and the designed world. She is currently completing a Master of Landscape Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where her thesis — Wandrian Marsh — investigates hysteresis and path-dependence in drowning coastal salt marshes as a framework for design intervention.
Before returning to graduate school, she spent two years at Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates in Brooklyn, coordinating over 2,000 acres of large-scale urban parks from concept through construction administration. That practice — drawing across scales, thinking through material and time — runs through her design and research work equally.
In 2025 she founded One Tree Good Day, a Cambridge-based landscape design practice. Her first project: a 1,500-square-foot native berm planted by hand with over 1,000 plugs from 30+ species, anchored by a dry stone wall built from excavated fill. She has also restored a deteriorating pond-edge wetland in collaboration with the Concord Conservation Commission.
Her research spans spatial wildfire risk, urban tree ecophysiology, and the anthropology of home energy use. She contributed to Bruno Carvalho's book on imagination and urban futures, and held a 2025 summer fellowship at Harvard's Salata Climate Policy Institute. She paints in oil — abstract, layered, color-forward — and her studio practice informs how she reads landscape.
Background
Education
Master of Landscape Architecture I
Harvard Graduate School of Design — Cambridge, MA
B.A. Environmental Science and Public Policy: Environmental Design
Harvard College — Cambridge, MA
Practice
Founder & Landscape Designer
One Tree Good Day — Cambridge, MA
Designed and hand-planted a native berm using 30+ species, 1,000 plugs, 1,500+ sq ft, with a stone wall from excavated fill; restored a deteriorating pond-edge wetland with Concord Conservation Commission.
Landscape Design Engineer
The Polly Hill Arboretum — Tisbury, MA
Native plant design and landscape technologies on Martha's Vineyard; community education on native plant successional dynamics.
Studio Assistant
Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates — Brooklyn, NY
Coordinated 2,000+ acres of large-scale parks from concept through construction administration; built hand 3D multi-scalar landscape models; design drawings in ArcGIS, AutoCAD, Rhino, and Grasshopper.
Energy Engineering Assistant & Field Carpenter
South Mountain Company — Tisbury, MA
Research
Researcher
Urban Tree Ecophysiology Network
Ecophysiology of urban trees under climate stress — heat tolerance, species selection, urban heat island interactions.
Summer Fellow
Harvard Salata Climate Policy Institute
Urbanism Researcher
Harvard Center for the Environment
Contributed to Bruno Carvalho's book on imagination and urban futures.
Field Researcher
Harvard Critical Landscapes Design Lab
Anthropological fieldwork on color and home energy intensity in Oak Bluffs, Martha's Vineyard.
Wildlife Monitor
BiodiversityWorks — Martha's Vineyard
Piping plover habitat monitoring and shorebird conservation fieldwork.
Service
Board Member
Harvard GSD Landscape Technology Forum