path design

San Diego-based landscape designer, watershaper and artist Melanie Jauregui has spent a career taking inspiration and clues from her clients, specific settings and her own explorations of the realm of art and design. As a result, she says, each of her projects is different from the others-and a reflection of a collaborative approach that enables her to bring just about any style to bear in meeting the distinctive needs of any project.

Style Council

I'm steadily reminded of one key point: No matter how talented any one of us might be, the work ultimately is not about us. For intensely creative people equipped with the necessary measures of self-confidence and ego, that point can be tough to accept and absorb, but it's true: For all our skills, we nonetheless work with our clients' visions, and the reality is that creating sympathetic designs for them takes time, patience and lots of effort. As a result, I'm passionate about uncovering what my clients are truly after in their garden and watershape designs. It's an investment of time and energy at the onset of the relationship that always