Join Our Team

Merritt Chase is currently seeking a landscape designer with 3-5 years of experience to join our team. We are looking for a thoughtful landscape designer who is collaborative and has excellent design skills. The ideal applicant will be located in our Indianapolis office, with the potential of a flexible, remote work option.

Candidates should have:

  • Interest in a variety of project types, scales, and phases of project development

  • Strong design skills and aesthetic sensibilities

  • Comfort with collaboration, idea generation, and design iteration

  • Clear, consistent, and thorough communication skills

  • Interest in landscapes and urban development across Middle America

  • Interest in working with diverse populations

  • Experience producing technical drawing sets

  • Rigorous attention to detail

  • Proficiency in AutoCAD, Adobe Creative Suite, and SketchUp

  • Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in landscape architecture

The position will include a range of tasks including:

  • Designing landscapes that balance form, program, historic significance, storytelling, social and cultural identity, ecology, and infrastructure integration

  • Renderings including illustrative plans and perspectives

  • Diagrams including plans and perspectives that convey design intent

  • Preparation of client presentations

  • Preparation of construction documents

Merritt Chase is a women-owned business and values a diverse workplace. We strongly encourage BIPOC, LGBTQ+ individuals, women, people with disabilities, and members of ethnic minorities to apply. Merritt Chase is an equal opportunity employer. Applicants will not be discriminated against because of race, color, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, religion, national origin, disability, ancestry, marital status, veteran status, medical condition or any protected category prohibited by local, state or federal laws.

If interested, please send a cover letter, resume, and portfolio as a single PDF (under 10mb) to info@merrittchase.com.

Dunham Tavern Museum Master Plan featured in The Architect's Newspaper

This month’s issue of The Architect’s Newspaper features the Dunham Tavern Museum Master Plan.

“To aid Dunham in the repositioning of its campus into a school trip-popular historic site and inclusive community asset, the museum tapped Merritt Chase, a landscape architecture and urban design practice based in Indianapolis and Pittsburgh, and LAND studio, a Cleveland-based nonprofit developer of urban parks and public art. Together, Merritt Chase and LAND studio worked with the museum to develop a campus master plan that serves as a ‘framework to facilitate practical day-to-day decisions as well as communicate Dunham’s vision for the future’ as an ‘inspiring, welcoming 21st-century public space.’ Informed by workshops, presentations, and listening and learning sessions attended by community stakeholders and Hough residents over an 18-month period, the recently completed master plan is centered around five key objectives: History, Education, Nature, and Community. It also proposes a range of interventions that preserve and enhance existing elements while creating new spaces that ‘allow Dunham to build upon its cultural significance and community presence.’”

Read the full article here.

Nina Chase presents "building momentum" as the Ohio ASLA Fall Conference Keynote Speaker

Birch Street Pop-up Plaza, Boston, MA

Nina joined landscape architects in Ohio as the keynote speaker for the Ohio ASLA Fall Conference on October 20th. The presentation entitled “Building Momentum” included a range of Merritt Chase short-term and long-term landscape projects that build momentum for the transformation of public space.

Nina Chase gives Mayfield Lecture at Fairmont State University

Hazel Ruby McQuain Riverfront Park, Morgantown, WV

The Fairmont State University Mayfield Lecture, named for Jeffrey Mayfield, Fairmont State alumnus, and architecture professor honors the “spirit and dedication” Professor Mayfield exhibited toward the exploration, craft and profession of architecture. The mission of the Mayfield Lecture is to encourage a sense of community between architectural education, the profession, and the public by influencing the educational, economic, and cultural well-being of our region through the dissemination of architectural knowledge. Fairmont State University is located in Fairmont, West Virginia.

Nina’s lecture featured the firm’s work throughout Appalachia, including the renovation of the Hazel Ruby McQuain Riverfront Park in Morgantown, WV and Appalachia Rising, Merritt Chase’s report for the Architectural League of New York’s American Roundtable project.

Merritt Chase welcomes Alex Kelley

Alex Kelley_Headshot.jpg

Merritt Chase is pleased to welcome Allex Kelley as an Associate to our team.

Before joining Merritt Chase, Alex was a project manager and design leader at Reed Hilderbrand, where he honed his design and construction administration experience on a variety of project types and scales. His past work includes public parks, institutional campuses, and cultural landscapes.

Read Alex’s bio and learn more about our full team on our About page here.

Dunham Tavern Museum Master Plan Debuts in Cleveland, Ohio

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“Dunham Tavern Museum plans a bright, inclusive future for new ‘central park’ in Cleveland’s Midtown neighborhood.”

We are happy to share the vision for the future of the Dunham Tavern Museum in MidTown Cleveland after a year and a half process working with the Dunham board, staff and members, and MidTown stakeholders and residents. The museum campus aims to become a more welcoming and inclusive, neighborhood and regional cultural destination. The master plan calls for new buildings including an event barn, community farm pavilion, and visitor’s center, enhancing and connecting landscape experiences with new trails, plazas, and gardens, and expansive programming and educational opportunities to engage new and diverse audiences.

You can read more in Steve Litt’s recent coverage of the plan here.

Landscape Architecture Magazine profiles "Appalachia Rising"

Rebecca Kiger

Rebecca Kiger

“Appalachia Rising begins with a simple prompt for a place that’s been exploited and maligned for much of its modern history: “We can start by listening to what the people of West Virginia are interesting in seeing in the future.”

Nina Chase, ASLA, is the editor of Appalachia Rising, and what follows is both design document and policy paper, and part of the final project for the Architectural League’s American Roundtable series, which is focused on better futures for small and medium-sized towns.

Appalachia Rising looks at how land is valued, tracing historical precedents established in West Virginia from extraction industries (oil, gas, logging, coal) to ecologically restorative agriculture and recreation.

The most defining rhetorical choice in Appalachia Rising is presenting West Virginia as a place of abundance—not deficiency—while still acknowledging the public austerity and corporate largess that’s defined it.”

Click here for the full article.

City of Pittsburgh kicks off Highland Park Super Playground Renovation

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The Highland Park Super Playground, located in the City of Pittsburgh’s Highland Park, was originally designed by Leathers and built as a community design-build project in 1991. The renovation will include new playground equipment, site improvements, and restoration of the existing park shelter.

Merritt Chase, with Civil & Environmental Consultants, Bartlett Tree Experts, and Kanics Inclusive Design Services, is leading the renovation effort with the City of Pittsburgh’s Department of Public Works and the Highland Park Community Council.

You can follow the project’s process and provide feedback on the City of Pittsburgh’s EngagePGH project page here.