Last week I spent a fabulous 4 days with Ramune and her staff at terrafirmaLT Landscape Architects in Vilnius, catching up and celebrating their second anniversary. In that time they have managed to secure projects as varied as private gardens, public parks, commercial plazas and historic infrastructure interventions as well as far reaching masterplans for public realm and green infrastructure. These have been throughout the country and its different cities but much in the capital itself. This includes a continuous 5kms of terrafirmaLT designed projects leading directly into the city centre from the east.
Their offices are located centrally in the city and are the workplace of the current 5 strong staff; Ramune, Emilija, Giedre, Lina and Linas as well as outside admin support and occasional freelancers and interns. It was good to review current projects and visit a good few of them under construction.
I also accompanied Ramune to a Muncipality presentation for Birstonas Park, the green centrepiece to a wonderfully located popular spa town just over an hour east of Vilnius, passing through Trakai on the way back – a great foray into the wider landscape of the country as well as a good opportunity to see a successfully executed presentation with the desired outcome of winning the next stage of work.
As well as reviewing progress and planning the logistics for future growth we did have time to thoroughly celebrate the firm’s birthday opposite the University where many of the staff, including Ramune, once studied – appropriately a library; ‘The Beer Library’!
I cannot recommend a visit to Lithuania strongly enough and Vilnius has to be one of the Europe’s best kept secrets with such a huge area of unspoilt old town with parks, greenspaces and woodland permeating its centre. We are very proud to have an office there, pioneering Landscape Architecture in this beautiful country and wish to publicize our congratulations on such an extraordinary first 2 years and wishing it every success in the years to come.
