About
Querc Studio is the design practice of Brendan Ayer, a landscape designer, researcher, and educator working in central Ohio. In all of his design projects, Brendan works closely with clients to consider their relationships with their landscapes, helping them realize their ambitions and the potentials of their outdoor spaces large and small.
Querc
/kwerk/
a peculiar trait
a flourish or showy stroke
an abbreviation of Quercus, latin for “oak”
a peculiar trait
a flourish or showy stroke
an abbreviation of Quercus, latin for “oak”
Studio
/studioʊ/the workroom of an artist or designer
a place for study or experimentation
a space to gain knowledge through attention
The name “querc” pays homage to the oaks, an immensely resilient, supportive, and fascinating group of trees. Querc Studio’s projects follow the logic of the oaks - projects that are rooted in place, resilient, robust, sustainable, and growing more beautiful and sophisticated with time. The studio name also signals a playful nature to designing and occupying the landscape, to work and build places that are unique. We learn more (about ourselves and our surroundings) and have more fun by recognizing and embracing the one-of-a-kind qualities of people and places. While every project involves the same care and attention from concept to installation, each design project looks for ways for each person, place, or relationship within the landscape to be expressed and valued.
We work with small properties and extensive estates, with any range of budget, because we believe that projects anywhere in these ranges have great capacity for ecological performance, collaborative existence, and aesthetic delight. We thread new ideas through existing and established gardens, imagine wholly new spaces, tinker and reframe ideas from traditional styles, and push forward with thoughtful and more-than-human modes of garden-making. We do this because there’s always something that can be done better, severed lines of knowledge and ecology to be repaired, and exciting new places to find beauty.
Brendan received his Master of Landscape Architecture from The Ohio State University and has held various roles in the imagining, making, and study of landscapes since 2017. In addition to his design practice, he currently teaches at OSU with a focus on the deeper understanding of and engagement with the primary elements and agents of landscapes, be they plants, people, climates, and time. If he had to distill his design process to a phrase it, would be: figure it out (methodically, graphically, spatially, relationally).