Helena Koch

Helena Koch approaches landscape as a sensory and emotional experience—one shaped as much by light, sound, and memory as by plantings and materials. With a background in sculpture and a lifelong fascination with the interplay between nature and the built environment, her work often explores how subtle shifts in form, texture, and pacing can reshape the way we move through space.

Before co-founding Fairway Design in 2016, Helena led large-scale institutional and residential projects across the Northeast, developing a reputation for creating landscapes that feel at once intimate and expansive. She brings particular care to thresholds—moments of arrival, passage, and pause—and is known for her ability to translate abstract concepts into grounded, lived environments.

Helena thrives in dialogue—with clients, with architecture, and with the land itself. Her design sensibility is quiet but confident, often characterized by long sightlines, unexpected softness, and an emphasis on restraint over ornament. She believes the most powerful landscapes aren’t immediately legible—they unfold.

She holds a Master of Landscape Architecture from Harvard GSD and a background in fine arts from RISD. Helena leads the studio’s New York office and often designs with a pencil in one hand and soil samples in the other.