Celia Winters: Restoring Ecology and Biophilia

Master of Landscape Architecture

Celia Winters is a recent graduate of the Master of Landscape Architecture program at Temple University, where she studied at the Ambler campus—an arboretum setting that reflects the program’s deep integration of ecological restoration and landscape design. With a background in gardening and environmental education, Celia’s design approach is rooted in restoring ecological systems impacted by human activity. Her work focuses on rethinking residential and public landscapes to prioritize biodiversity, native plants, and climate resilience. Celia is passionate about reconnecting people with nature through thoughtful, restorative design that sparks biophilia and fosters a renewed sense of responsibility toward the environment.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What is your degree program, and can you briefly describe the chain of events that led you to graduate school at Temple?

I'm a third-year landscape architecture student in the master's program at Temple. For the last five years before starting this program, I was a garden manager and educator at a small non-profit in Wilmington, Delaware that focused on field-to-fork experiences, organic gardening, animal husbandry, plant and tree identification, and hiking with kids in the city. That land was next to a preserve that was managed with native plants. That got me thinking about land management and native plants, and then I sort of found landscape architecture through that. When I was looking at programs, I noticed that Temple had a really strong focus in restoration. I found this program and I really immediately just was like, that's where I want to go. So I'm here and I love it. It's a great program.

Can you tell us a little bit about your research?

My thesis right now for capstone is Designing for the River, Humans May Visit. It doesn't sound like a very traditional thesis, but the core of that message is it's a floodplain that's been very disconnected and mistreated. So my goal is to help reconnect them in a way that helps with flood mitigation and overall connectivity with water and water intake and retention. The goal is that the river is put as a priority, whereas the humans have been the priority. Living in the river floods is so inconvenient. But how about—how do we make the flood something to celebrate?

Can you tell us more about your specific program? What do you like about it, and what kind of opportunities have come out of it?

The program I'm in is the Master's of Landscape Architecture. And we study here on Ambler campus mostly, which is really great. It's very distinct in what ecosystem they're trying to train you on so that when you go out into the world, you can understand their approach with dignity first and then human second. My classroom is right up there in the arboretum. Also, first of all, I have nothing but amazing things to say about my cohort. Everybody is so supportive. There's absolutely no egos. Coming into it trying to learn CAD, Illustrator, InDesign, or SketchUp, your mind is just constantly exploding with new information. But having each other to lean on—having no sort of judgment—has opened us all up to just feeling so comfortable.
 

What impact do you hope your work / art will have within your field of study and beyond?

I really hope the impact of my career is that whatever person, entity, community I come in contact with—my main goal is to really just help incite this biophilic love for nature. I want to incite that to people more and have them understand where it comes from so that there's a greater responsibility over the world around us. I just want to turn the lens back on to nature. When we're building a neighborhood, how do we respect existing trees? Just a mentality change in people. Which sounds really big. I don't know if that's possible. But I'm going to try.

What specific challenges has being in grad school helped you learn to face?

We all come from different backgrounds. And coming into it trying to learn CAD, Illustrator, InDesign, SketchUp—your mind is just constantly exploding with new information and it's incredibly intimidating. But the thing that's given us all sort of the sense of calm is having each other to lean on. So having no sort of judgment towards the learning process with one another has opened us all up to just feeling so comfortable.

What do you consider your community at Temple? How has this community impacted you, and how do you hope to impact this community?

My community is my cohort, really. We are all really tight-knit and all really supportive of each other. Beyond that, we all meet for ASLA meetings—American Society of Landscape Architects. I don’t think I would have been able to learn as much if I didn’t have them. I hope if people can learn something from me, it might be: we all feel awkward or uncomfortable when we're all new in a room, so just dive right in. Chances are everybody else around you is also nervous…so just move on from that feeling.

Do you have any mentors or people you look up to?

Nathan Havers—he started our first year, so we kind of grew into the program together. I know I work very well with mentorship, and he is a professor who I think really brings out the artist in me, and not just by creating physical things, but by thought. He just has a really great way of meeting a student where they're at as a person, and he has a way of helping you construct your best work without you even realizing it's happening.

What is one piece of advice you’d offer to a potential graduate student?

The only advice I can think of is if you're considering going to graduate school, whether it be to further your current degree or totally switch fields—I say just go for it. Time's going to pass anyway, and you might as well do the thing that makes you go outside of your comfort zone and really push yourself. That's what life's all about—learning new things and finding out who you are on all these different levels.