Christian Douglas
Founder + PRINCIPAL Designer
Christian is a multi-award winning landscape designer, creating beautiful and productive outdoor spaces for over 25 years. Combining his formal training in classical design and his passion for regenerative agriculture, he has created innovative landscapes in his native England, Jordan, Australia and throughout the United States, with food at the heart.
Christian co-owned a design and fine gardening company in the U.K for 12 years, winning awards at the prestigious Chelsea Flower Show. His primary work focused on the redesign and construction of country estates and London Townhouses. Leaving the UK in 2008, he travelled the world learning strategies for farming and survival in desert environments while working and teaching for both for-profit and non-profit farms and education centers. He was constantly inspired by the common connection cultures have to their environment and growing food. This inspiration moved him to relocate to Marin County, in Northern California, in 2012, where he opened The Backyard Farm Co, an edible landscaping business that creates urban farms and teaches families how to grow their own food.
Christian’s passion for the integration of food, responsible land use and people are at the heart of his designs. His innate curiosity and multidisciplinary skills, allow him to assist clients in developing environments where style and food live seamlessly together.
Cole
Landscape Designer
Cole is our landscape designer. A proud SF Native and outside the box creative which makes for a seamless fit with the team at CDD. With a background in both architecture and landscape design/construction, Cole brings invaluable expertise and vision to all of our projects on both horizontal and vertical planes.
After receiving an B.Arch from Cornell University, Cole returned to his hometown and got his hands dirty designing & building with his mentor, Peter Good. This included various projects at the San Francisco Botanical Garden where his love for landscape and gardens was solidified.
An accomplished landscaper, fine artist, and an award winning short-film maker, Cole was simply born to create beauty for the world.
CHRISTIANA PAOLETTI
HEAD FOOD DESIGNER
Christiana is our plant and food expert who works closely with clients to take the finished landscape into a carefully curated foodscape tailored to their culinary desires. Growing up with organic farming pioneers, Full Belly Farm and Riverdog Farm, Christiana’s passion for farming and food has since lead her from the islands of Scotland to the jungles of Nicaragua in the pursuit of gaining experience with diverse small-scale agriculture methods.
Christiana focused her degree at UCSC on agricultural policy and food justice, specifically relating to her work with the non-profit Homeless Garden Project as their Community Supported Agriculture Manager. As the former Assistant Farm Manager for Saison, a 3-Michelin-Star restaurant in San Fransisco, she cultivated 3 acres of specialty crops in Marin County. Her dedication to quality and enthusiasm for all growing things is apparent in every aspect of her life, but especially when helping to turn farming goals into reality. With a strong belief in connecting people with their food, she supports our clients to grow beautiful backyard spaces and enjoy delicious produce.
CHRISTIAN MACKE
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT
Christian is a licensed Landscape Architect with a focus on agrihood design and development. His shared desire to integrate food and regenerative strategize into our masterplans is a perfect fit for the design team at CDD. From landscape analysis and design to community programming, his leadership and design skills have supported large teams developing innovative lifestyle communities and fully-integrated sustainable developments.
With a strong passion for urban agriculture and the importance of community empowerment, Christian promotes the integration of edible and sustainable landscapes into his work to enable more resilient communities. His experience include estate owners, developers and operators with a focus on master-planned communities, multi-family and mixed-use developments. He collaborates with a wide variety of disciplines to find solutions to today’s issues, and creates the foundation for the factors of all environments - economic, social and environmental - into an integrated design that is at its core, resilient, and truly authentic.
Olivia
landscape Designer
With a passion for native, pollinator friendly, and edible plants, her original and playful ideas add a level of environmental consciousness to our designs.
Born and raised in Sausalito, Olivia has a degree in Environmental Studies and a broad range of farming and food experience including interning with conservation efforts at the American Farmland Trust in New York, making wine in Italy, and working at nurseries around Marin. She is also an active member of the UCCE Marin Master Gardeners, where she advises community members on plant and pest problems.
Her appreciation for all of the little things is what makes Olivia’s perspective indispensable to our team and the field of landscape design.