Meet the founder
Andrew Sargeant
Andrew Sargeant is a landscape architect that leads LayerCake with a commitment to transformative design, emphasizing community well-being and environmental sustainability. In 2020, he became the first Enterprise Rose Landscape Architectural Fellow working with Cleveland Neighborhood Progress in Cleveland, Ohio. His work includes advocacy, design, and planning in collaboration with many of Cleveland’s Community Development Corporations around park space and urban design. His work in community development combined with his years of private practice experience have led him to create community-based landscape architecture solutions that drive change.
Our Experience and Expression
LayerCake is rooted in its identity as a minority-owned practice. It is grounded in Andrew Sargeant's experience in nonprofit placemaking, participatory design, and a thorough and authentic community engagement strategy that centers the project around people first.
"It has always been my sensibility to be good at what I do, and be recognized for that, more than my skin color. But it is also important to understand the larger discourse that I occupy. The consequences of a system that didn't put people first directly affect minority communities. Designing for people first means hearing what they want and need, and synthesizing that into a design that works for them, whether they're black or not. All people first."
- Andrew Sargeant
Meet the Collaborators
LayerCake consistently partners with diverse and talented collaborators who enhance the process and the project.
Margaret Gallagher
Margaret M. Gallagher (ASLA, MLA) is a landscape designer at LayerCake, blending expertise in landscape architecture, placemaking, and visual storytelling. A photographer and adjunct professor at the Tyler School of Art and Architecture at Temple University, she brings a creative, research-driven approach to projects, integrating design, community engagement, and compelling imagery to craft meaningful spaces that connect people and place.
Gray Haus Studio
Gray Haus Studios curates custom art collections that amplify businesses, activate spaces, and spark conversations. Artwork is integral to the placemaking process, and LayerCake often partners with Gray Haus to produce custom, community-specific artwork for our parks and public spaces.
Bostwick Design Partnership
LayerCake has partnered with Bostwick Design Partnership on several library projects, including the award-winning Noble Library Expansion. The purpose of their architecture is to enhance our experience as humans. To provide those around us the environments to heal, to teach, to learn, and to gather. Together, we provide an engagement-friendly synergy to build places with the communities that make them.
LayerCake by numbers.
LayerCake is a practice that is committed to putting people first to create meaningful places.
84%
Public work
1/2
Acre of playgrounds constructed
725+
Hours of community engagement
To learn more about where these numbers come from go to the Place page.
People
Practice
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