About

THE STUDIO

Garness Studio offers full service design for both residential and landscape projects. We believe in the elemental unity of house and garden, built and natural environments, figure and ground. We work with owners, builders, and other designers to extend the life of a project across the entire property, creating a framework for daily living – a way to be within the beauty of the world.

We believe good design – structure, space, light, color, accommodation – creates good places and value over time, changing with seasons and uses, returning the collective energy received as sustenance, serenity, and surprise.

Principal Daniel Garness is a New Orleans native, with a B.Arch degree from LSU, and graduate studies at UCLA. Dan studied with and subsequently worked 12 years with noted American architect, Charles Moore, as an associate at his Santa Monica firm, Moore Ruble Yudell. As a lead project designer and manager, Dan was in charge of numerous housing, planning, mixed-use and residential projects in California, Berlin and Japan, traveling extensively to coordinate complex teams. He also worked for some of the top architectural and landscape design firms in Los Angeles, including Marc Appleton, Barton Myers, Barton Phelps, Katherine Spitz and Nancy Goslee Power.

Since 1999, Dan has operated his own residential design firm in Los Angeles and New Orleans, with an emphasis on the connections between building and landscape. Over 40 years, Dan has been lead designer on over 130 projects, and has worked with over 50 contractors and numerous consultants, on all aspects of design and project implementation. He is committed to design as a way to bring components of the environment together – as a collaborative approach for ideas, and for inhabitation.