Lauren Swezey, Sustainability and Landscape Project Lead, Facebook

Lauren leads sustainability for Facebook Facilities where she directs green building initiatives in the San Francisco Bay Area and oversees the design of Facebook’s new landscapes.  Over the past several years, Lauren has been focused on reducing the carbon footprint of Facebook offices, by implementing processes to reduce embodied carbon in construction projects and helping to source 100% renewable energy for global offices.  For Facebook’s landscapes, Lauren oversaw the development of the 9-acre and 3.6-acre green roofs on the company’s nationally acclaimed buildings designed by Frank Gehry. Since joining Facebook in 2010, she’s been partnering with local and regional environmental nonprofits to help protect and restore the natural environment, including the wetlands and endangered species adjacent to Facebook’s headquarters. Lauren serves on the Board of Directors for Save the Bay and advises several environmental nonprofits.

Rayna deNiord, Principal, CMG Landscape Architecture

Rayna is interested in making places that seize you on first encounter, drawing you back again and again to experience their rich expression. In cultivating curiosity through a concurrence with nature in the built environment, she hopes to build a wider vocabulary – elevating conversation about the importance and beauty of life existing around us. Being within nature allows for learning through osmosis – it can relax the mind, expand perception, and stimulate imagination. Over the past 10-years she has been leading the landscape design and construction of Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park where she has had the opportunity to deeply explore these ideas. She believes that if people are brought closer to the natural world within their everyday routines, that there will be more respect and joy for it. It’s vital to motivate humanity to participate in this stewardship. Rayna hopes to make places that people want to be in. Deliberately integrating diversity into the design of projects, she celebrates form and materiality by inviting interaction – hoping places wear over time, show use, and get better with age.

Molly Batchelder, Consulting Arborist, SBCA Tree Consulting

Molly and her father, Steve, have been working as Facebook’s consulting Arborists since 2011.  Originally brought onto the project by CMG to perform the tree survey for the old Bayfront site, their work has expanded to include all aspects of tree care for the Menlo Park campuses.  SBCA Tree Consulting has designed Facebook’s specifications for tree protection, nursery selection and tree planting, and have consulted on species selection for the proposed MPK 22 Park.  They are grateful to be part of Facebook’s tree team and wish to pass along the information vital to creating and maintaining vibrant communities.