WASHINGTON STATE LANDSCAPE DESIGN & PERMITTING
Licensed Landscape Architecture Services
State-Level Licensing
Full-Service Support
Regional Expertise
Discover exactly
what's possable
Landscape Architectural Plans for Builders, Developers, Architects, and Municipal Review
True Scape Design supports more than backyard transformations. We provide landscape architectural planning for single-family new construction, multifamily projects, townhomes, apartments, infill development, builder projects, architect-led projects, and municipal submittal packages.
We can help prepare and coordinate landscape-related plans that support review, pricing, revisions, and construction. That may include planting plans, street use plans, right-of-way landscape conditions, frontage planting, tree coordination, Green Factor planning, ECA or mitigation support, grading and drainage coordination, and stamped drawings when required.
Consider Us The Glue Between Owners, Cities, Inspectors, and Consultants
Complicated projects rarely fall apart because one person is not smart enough. They get messy because the homeowner, architect, builder, engineer, geotechnical consultant, environmental consultant, city reviewer, and site inspector may all be looking at different parts of the same problem.
True Scape Design helps hold those pieces together. We work with city inspectors, site inspectors, engineers, geotechs, environmental consultants, architects, builders, developers, and homeowners. Then we translate the technical side into a language everyone can understand, read, revise, and make decisions from.
That is one of the biggest reasons to choose a PLA/RLA-level landscape architecture team. You are not just buying drawings. You are getting professional coordination that helps the project team move together instead of forcing the homeowner, builder, or architect to become the translator.
We Build, So Our Plans Stay Connected to Reality
True Scape Design stands apart from many landscape architecture firms because we also build. That changes the way we plan.
We understand what it takes to turn an idea into work in the ground. We understand materials, sequencing, labor, access, drainage, retaining walls, inspections, pricing, and the choices that can quietly push a project beyond the budget.
That means our plans are not just art pieces that look great but cannot be afforded or constructed. We help clients understand what is possible, what it may cost, what may need to be phased, and what must be handled correctly to meet legal and municipal requirements along the way.
This matters because missed rules can become expensive. Some clients only learn about hidden requirements after they are holding a correction notice, a stop-work order, or liability they never meant to take on. Our role is to help identify those issues earlier, explain the options clearly, and help the project move forward with better planning.
THE SMART CHOICE
Why Hire a Landscape Architect Instead of a Standard Landscape Designer?
The Plant Specialist:
A horticulturist knows plants at a level most people never will — soil chemistry, root behavior, how a Japanese maple will perform on a north-facing slope in the Pacific Northwest versus full southern exposure. If your project is purely about plant health and selection, this is valuable expertise.
But here’s the limitation: plant knowledge doesn’t tell you where the patio should go, how people will move through the space, or whether that retaining wall idea is even buildable. A horticulturist can tell you what will thrive in your yard. They can’t tell you what your yard should become.
The Concept Creator:
A landscape designer adds the layer most homeowners actually feel: composition. They think about sightlines from your kitchen window, how the fire pit area relates to the dining space, where your eye lands when you step outside. Good designers create spaces that feel intentional rather than assembled.
What they typically can’t do is engineer. When your project involves significant grade changes, structural retaining walls, drainage systems, or anything requiring permits and stamped drawings, a designer’s plans often hit a wall – literally and legally. The vision exists on paper, but no one has verified it can stand up in the real world.
The Structural Authority:
This is where the profession becomes a licensed discipline. Landscape architects are trained and credentialed to handle the things that can actually go wrong: structural loads, slope stability, stormwater management, code compliance. Their drawings carry legal weight. A contractor can pick up a landscape architect’s plan set and build from it with confidence — and a city permitting office will accept it.
The gap that remains? Most landscape architecture firms design first and price never. You fall in love with a stamped, finished plan set — then the contractor bids come back at ten times what you imagined, and there’s no flexibility left. The design is done. Your options are to pay for it, pay to redesign in a loop, or shelve it.
The Reality Builder:
A design-build landscape architect connects the design, budget, permitting, and construction process from the beginning. The same team shaping the vision is also thinking through how the work will actually be built — from grading, drainage, walls, planting, access, materials, and construction sequencing to the real cost of getting it done.
That changes everything once the project moves off the computer screen and into the real world. When excavation reveals something unexpected, the people solving the problem are the same people who helped design the space. No finger-pointing. No guessing. Just a finished project that stays connected to the original vision.
MUP
Shorelines
GSI
Complexity, Simplified
Violation Corrections
SIP
ROW
Green Factor
Wetlands
SEPA
01
Professional Responsibility
02
Translation
03
and Buildability
Before the Hard Parts
Get Expensive
Bring us in for the vision. Keep us for when the unexpected hits.
On the projects we design and build, our designers and crews work closely together - not a set of plans handed off to a crew seeing them for the first time. The design is made to be built, and built the way it was drawn.
And when we’re only doing the design, that same build experience drives the plans. Because we know how a design actually gets installed, ours are clear and detailed enough to build from without guesswork - by our crews or anyone else’s. Nothing’s hidden, nothing’s left for the field to interpret. It’s a transparent process, from the drawing to the finished space.
Real Plans. Real Permits. Real Construction Knowledge.
TRANSLATION
We Explain the Technical Work in a Way People Can Actually Use
OUR SERVICES
One studio. Four ways in.
Each service is available on its own.
Not sure which you need? Let's talk.
THE WHOLE PROJECT
Landscape Design-Build
Design, documentation, pricing, and installation with one team. For people who want us involved from the first idea to the final walkthrough.
Live 3D design + buildable plans
Costing developed alongside design
In-house installation
Explore this service
DESIGN ON ITS OWN
Landscape Design
Explore your space in 3D and leave with buildable plans. Hire us to design it, without committing to hire us to build it.
Site-accurate 3D design
Construction-ready 2D documents
Plans another contractor can build
Explore this service
LICENSED EXPERTISE
Landscape Architecture
Washington-licensed landscape architecture for permitting, critical areas, grading, drainage, and more complex sites. Available independently or alongside your existing team.
Washington-licensed landscape architect
Permit + critical-area coordination
Stamped plans where required
Explore this service
READY TO BUILD
Landscape Construction
Our in-house crews bring an approved design to life. We can build from our plans or plans prepared by another qualified professional.
Build from our plans or yours
In-house field crews
Project management + final walkthrough
Explore this service