Site Collaborative: Building a More Sustainable North Carolina
Our North Carolina Forever Partner Spotlight series highlights a different NC Forever partner monthly, delving into their core mission, and how each unique partner provides valuable insight and expertise to our consensus-based mission to conserve our state’s land and water resources.
Site Collaborative, a Raleigh-based landscape architecture firm, works with municipal governments, architects, engineers, and site developers to create “spaces that intermingle aesthetics, constructability, ecological processes, and the unique human experience.” Those spaces take the shape of parks, greenways, public lands, campuses, and more.
Site Collaborative President and current NC Forever co-chair Graham Smith says they’ve built a specialty around low-impact park design and green infrastructure community-focused projects — blending stormwater management and low impact park improvements with passive recreation. Their work is often about getting people out to discover the natural world that makes North Carolina special.
Since joining NC Forever in 2019, Smith notes Site Collaborative’s unique position amongst NC Forever partners as a local small business striving to make a difference in conservation in North Carolina saying, “I looked at it as an opportunity to gain a seat at the table to learn, and pursue a passion that correlates to our business.”
Wooten Meadow Park, Raleigh: Site Collaborative led a multi-faceted team in the master planning. public engagement, and final design of this ecologically-focused community park featuring 270′ of day-lit/recreated stream, native plant habitats and meandering loop trails.
Smith added that before joining NC Forever he was unfamiliar with how advocacy in state government worked and by joining the group he was able to support policy that helped conservation-focused projects be possible, and more importantly to him, help preserve some of the most important reasons why he and his family (and hundreds of thousands of others) choose to live in North Carolina.
Being a consensus organization with so many different voices at the table, it’s not always easy to solidify the NC Forever’s legislative agenda, though Smith says, when all the interests in the room agree, you know “it’s coming from a place of strength and is a really, really, good program.”
“I love all the opportunities to have the variety of conversations we have. After a face-to-face event, I always say ‘I am so glad I went to that.’”
-Graham Smith, Site Collaborative on his participation in NC Forever
As NC Forever continues its mission Smith sees his work during his time as co-chair to include attracting new partners, especially small and North Carolina-based businesses, that have an interest in preserving the state’s lands and waters. He sees opportunities in the hospitality space, along with various beverage makers and distributors who rely heavily on clean water sources.
For NC Forever, having business partners like Site Collaborative strengthens the coalition’s voice in advocating for increased conservation funding. It shows legislators and the public that protecting North Carolina’s lands and waters isn’t just an environmental priority but an economic and community development strategy that creates the quality-of-life residents demand.
Sassafras All Children’s Playground is an all-inclusive community play space focused on providing a wide-range of play activities for children of all ages and abilities.
