Principals

Sheila A. Brady, FASLA

Vice President of Design

Lisa E. Delplace, ASLA

Chief Executive Officer

Eric D. Groft, ASLA

Vice President of Innovation

Wolfgang Oehme, FASLA

Founding Partner

In Memoriam

James van Sweden, FASLA

Founding Partner

Sheila Brady’s design achievements include many of the firm’s distinguished projects. Recent work includes the New Native Garden and the Azalea Garden at New York Botanical Garden, the Corporate Headquarters and roof gardens for United Therapeutics, a biotechnology company and laboratory in Silver Spring, Maryland, The National World War II Memorial; and the Martin Luther King Memorial in Washington, DC, Sheila’s award winning private gardens is where attention to detail and focus on ecologically responsible design is evident. Her extensive work in sensitive coastal environments in New England been widely publicized. Sheila is a registered Landscape Architect and has been elected to the Council of Fellows of the American Society of Landscape Architects. She holds a Masters of Landscape Architecture degree from Harvard University's Graduate School of Design, a Bachelor of Arts in Fine Arts from George Washington University, and studied at the Corcoran School of Art.

Lisa Delplace's extensive knowledge of ecological processes and her deep commitment to their artistic execution result in a strong sculptural relationship between architecture and landscape. Her recent accomplishments include roof terraces, greenrooms, and vertical green screens in Washington D.C., New York, and Chicago. Other works include the sculpted shoreline of the Gardens of the Great Basin, the Plant Conservation Science Center, the Trellis Bridge and the Cove, at children’s aquatic learning center at the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe, Illinois. Ms. Delplace’s planning and design accomplishments also include the University of Maryland Facilities Master Plan; the Plant Science Campus and West Collections at the Chicago Botanic Garden; a fourteen-acre United States Embassy site in Southeast Asia, a six-acre United States Embassy site in Katmandu, Nepal, and a 500-acre National Conservation Training Center campus for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service near Shepherdstown, West Virginia. Lisa is a registered Landscape Architect and holds a Masters of Landscape Architecture degree from the University of Michigan and a Bachelor of Science degree in Park Planning and Design from Michigan State University. She is a member of the American Society of Landscape Architects and Past-President of the Potomac Chapter.

Eric Groft has over 25 years of experience in residential, commercial and institutional work. Eric’s frequently published design accomplishments are focused in the New York Metropolitan area. His portfolio features residential rooftop terraces, gardens and estates as well as commercial work for the Ritz-Carlton Residences, North Hills, New York and Americana at Manhasset, a collection of international boutiques along Long Island’s “Miracle Mile”. Mr. Groft additional accomplishments include residential properties on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and Virginia, and academic and institutional campuses including the landscape design and perimeter security for the Federal Reserve, the U.S. Embassy in Barbados and the Alderman Quadrangle at The University of Virginia. Eric is a registered Landscape Architect and a member of the American Society of Landscape Architects. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree with majors in geography/ environmental science from Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania and a Master of Landscape Architecture degree from the University of Virginia.

Wolfgang Oehme, co-founder of Oehme, van Sweden & Associates, was a distinguished landscape architect and horticulturalist for more than fifty years. Working in the United States and abroad, his credits include redesign of all planting along Washington, D.C.’s Pennsylvania Avenue, from the U.S. Treasury to the National Gallery, as well as the Virginia Avenue Gardens of the Federal Reserve Board in Washington, D.C. Mr. Oehme’s creative use of herbaceous perennials and ornamental grasses demonstrates how dramatic, multi-seasonal, and low-maintenance they can be. His work has been honored by the American Horticultural Society, the Perennial Plant Association, and the Massachusetts Horticultural Society amongst others, and he has taught at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Georgia. Messrs. Oehme and van Sweden co-authored Bold Romantic Gardens: The New World Landscapes of Oehme and van Sweden. Mr. Oehme passed away in December of 2011. He will be missed.

James van Sweden, together with Wolfgang Oehme, founded Oehme, van Sweden & Associates and has been credited with inspiring the New American Garden style. Mr. van Sweden’s portfolio encompasses a wide range of residential and nonresidential works, and is notable for the way in which his work reflects a multidisciplinary approach to architecture, landscape architecture, and urban design. His nonresidential work includes such diverse yet notable projects as the World War II Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the Gardens of the Great Basin at the Chicago Botanic Garden and the United States Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, while his distinguished designs for residences range in scale from urban town gardens to suburban and rural estates. Mr. van Sweden’s work has received numerous honors, including the 2010 ASLA Design Medal, and is the author of four books on garden design that are popular with professionals and the general public alike. While Mr. van Sweden is retired from the firm, he continues his involvement as a consultant.