Elliott Maltby

Trained in landscape and urban design, Elliott Maltby believes that art and design can improve the sustainability and vitality of the urban experiment. In particular, landscape architecture has a critical role to play in realigning our relationship to the environment, to see it as one framed by the community, responsibility, and care. Her work examines hidden ecologies, spatial cultural practices, plant-human narratives, community engagement and demanding the just allocation of public space. She is a founding partner of thread collective, a multi-disciplinary design studio that explores the seams between building, art, and landscape. Her work at thread collective creates spaces for engaging with the natural world and making evident the systems that support humans and other species. Collaborating with community organizations that link environmentalism and resilience with social justice and the urgent work for diversity and equity, she brings responsive, resilient design thinking and urban ecology expertise to the table.
Elliott’s courses examine how a socio-ecological systems perspective can support the development of innovative public landscapes, the design of nature based solutions, and their co-benefits. She is a member of Inclusive Ecologies at Pratt, a space for research, teaching, and practice that explores the intersection of feminism, diverse range of multi-species landscapes and the climate crisis. She has been an active board member of the interdisciplinary Laboratory for Art Nature and Dance, a research organization that investigates the power of dance, in collaboration with other fields, in particular the sciences, to illuminate our kinetic understanding of the urban environment. In addition to working with dancers and scientists, she has collaborated with a number of artists over the years, including Mary Miss.

B.A., Kenyon College (Thesis: Use of Laughter in Nietzsche)
Master of Landscape Architecture, University of California, Berkeley (Thesis: Geography of Time)