Raymond Jungles: Plant Passion
Raymond Jungles is the founder of the Miami-based landscape architecture firm Raymond Jungles, Inc. (RJI), recognized for excellence in the design and implementation of public and private sector projects.
As a landscape architect and in his practice, he strives to preserve and protect existing ecosystems while also evoking human interaction and improving the lives of others. Jungles pursued this passion through his adolescence and developed it into his career after graduating with a degree in landscape architecture, with honors, from the University of Florida in 1981. He established his award-winning firm in 1982, which became incorporated as Raymond Jungles, Inc. in 1985. In 2006, Jungles was elected a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects.
Jungles's work has been celebrated with numerous awards including two National awards from the American Society of Landscape Architects for the Sky Garden and Island Modern residential gardens. He is also a recipient of 53 design awards from the Florida Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects, including 18 Awards of Excellence and six Frederic B. Stresau Awards.
Jungles leads all of RJI's projects, from their conceptual onset to final completion. He enjoys mentoring his staff and passionately promoting the profession of landscape architecture and the appreciation of natural environments and gardens. He lectures domestically and internationally at a diverse array of institutions and universities on the subject of his work and on the work and influences of Roberto Burle Marx, whom he has acknowledged as his mentor. Jungles credits the time spent in the presence of Burle Marx, or the "master modernist", as having a defining impact on his life's trajectory.
Widely published, his three monographs — Ten Landscapes, The Colors of Nature, and most recently, The Cultivated Wild — feature more than 50 of his completed gardens.
