Livable Cities Studio is excited to celebrate the promotions of Yishuen Lo to Associate and Will Viitanen to Senior Associate. Both have used their talents to uplift the firm and our projects through their enthusiasm, ensuring design excellence, pushing innovation, and elevating our studio culture. They are effective not only because of their great work but because they focus on making meaningful contributions in ways that help people and communities grow stronger. Congratulations!

Yishuen Lo, Associate

“My diverse cultural and educational backgrounds allow me to see the world in continuous spectrum instead of binary solutions and provide me the ability to seek common grounds for our diverse communities through visual communication and emerging technologies. I enjoy the opportunity to advocate for different voices within our communities, and to promote equity for all members of our city, regardless of race, gender, and species.”

Yishuen is a landscape designer and leader of digital innovation at Livable Cities Studio with diverse interests in urban design, visualization, user experience design, and emerging technologies. Yishuen brings her expertise in advanced digital innovation, supporting technological and visual development of all phases of projects and studio work. Through Yishuen’s leadership, the studio continues to expand into new digital territories that that blend visual communication, mixed reality, computational design, and the design process. Yishuen believes great design starts with the end-users in mind and is interested in using emerging technologies and landscape architecture to design human experiences for people and communities. Yishuen received her B.A. Urban Studies and Master of Landscape Architecture from The University of Texas at Austin, and enjoys cycling, hiking, coding, doodling, and VR games in her spare time.

Will Viitanen, RLA, ASLA, Senior Associate

“I moved to Colorado in 2006 from the east coast and immediately fell in love with the landscape and lifestyle. As an active outdoor enthusiast, I believe time is better spent outside, which drives my enthusiasm for design. My passion is creating spaces that reinforce the connection between humans and nature, building and promoting health and well-being for our communities, and I believe collaboration is at the core of successful design and innovation. My recent work has allowed me to engage with diverse groups and offer meaningful contributions to projects that promote community, inclusion and health.”

Will Viitanen is a landscape architect at Livable Cities Studio leading and elevating the studio’s design and technical work. A skillful and thoughtful designer, Will works collaboratively on some of the studios more complex, multi-disciplinary projects exploring how design can be used to address social, economic, and environmental issues. His background in architecture, landscape architecture and planning inform his sensibility towards design thinking, narrative, craft, detailing, and a place-based approach to sustainable design. Will holds a Master of Landscape Architecture degree from the University of Colorado Denver and a Bachelor of Environmental Design degree from the University of Colorado Boulder.