IG     
 
                   GOLDEN  HOUR                                                           [     landscape  design studio     ]
a cinematic, unifying time of day,
a window of opportunity.

[ framing nature with a wild edge ]



Golden Hour brings vibrant places into the world that foster curiosity and horticultural intrigue. We design at a range of scales and project types from residential to public landscape, intimate urban garden plot to rambling rural estate. 

With each project, the goal is to awaken the site’s potential. The portal opens with close listening and observation to inform a sensitive and strong design response. Concept drawings propose hard and soft elements to explore new directions with clients, with an eye to bridging  the dreams for the space with the functional requirements. With feedback and revisions incorporated and finalized plans documented, the project is then shepherded through planning and installation phases. Engagement and close collaboration with contractors, suppliers, artisans, and gardeners/stewards ensures that the vision comes to life and flourishes as imagined.
 



Let’s get out more and inhabit our bodies. Chatbot embedded in your left wrist? Another reason to disconnect and engage with the outdoor environment. A garden provides a venue for growing practices of attending to natural details and patterns, through time. 


Every project is an opportunity to support habitat, a small tithe toward the other complex tenants of Earth. Gardens are more than pretty; they can be designed to feed the life web and contribute to biodiversity, one host plant at a time. Our non-human neighbors don’t share our mainstream landscape aesthetic, which really reads “sad food desert” to them. Golden Hour gestures to the sweet spot between tame and wild, control and letting go. Dance the line!






  •       Approaches & Ingredients

  • Hands-on listening and learning
  • Edit and adapt versus wipe the slate clean
  • Context and playful moments of dissonance 
  • Natural non-chemical solutions
  • Resourcefulness rules
  • Surprising details + ephemeral wonders 
  • New life and purpose for old materials
  • Compost the past to fertilize the future 
  • Teasing out stories
  • Thou Shalt Not Bore





The Aim is to create a thing of interest, benefit, and beauty in collaboration with client and site, while also broadening the notion of what that thing might be…  Beautiful garden? Gift? New perceptions? New body? New relationships? Yes. Yes. Yes. Maybe! Yes!




Rafael earned a Master’s of Landscape Architecture from UC Berkeley (2017) and a certificate of horticulture from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden (2012). Previously, he designed residential and institutional landscapes with Ron and team at the award-winning firm Lutsko Associates (2017-2022). In a past life he hustled in the wilds of arts administration and horticulture in New York City, where he worked at world-class public gardens including the High Line and Brooklyn Bridge Park. 

Golden Hour is an evolving queer-led business in SF, working in the unceded homeland of the Ramaytush Ohlone peoples.
garden, please: rafael@goldenhourlandscape.com for inquiries and collaborations

@goldenhour_landscape


1st built work pictured designed while at Lutsko Associates. Site under construction