About Us
Phyla Studio is passionate about creating a sense-of-place for our clients. We believe that landscapes should be aesthetically unified with their region and their inhabitants. For us, this means curating plants and materials that are climate-adapted, locally sourced, and fit into our client’s lifestyle. We love subtropical ecology and believe that operating locally—knowing a place, its people, and its natural systems through and through—is the key to producing landscapes that remain healthy and beautiful for years to come.
Malone Matson, founder
Malone Matson is the founder of Phyla Studio and a licensed landscape architect. For the past decade, Malone’s work has focused on place-making, environmental justice, and regenerative design. Prior to founding Phyla, she worked at Raymond Jungles Inc and ArquitectonicaGEO in Miami (where she worked on such notable projects as Brickell City Center and Wynwood’s Streetscape Masterplan), as well as Future Green Studio and Local Office Landscape Architecture in New York City. Malone also spent two years as a sustainability consultant on the master planning team for Harmony Projects, an eco-developer in Costa Rica.
Malone received a Master of Landscape Architecture from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. As a Teaching Assistant and Research Assistant at the GSD, she worked extensively on issues of climate change, particularly regarding sea level rise. She won an Honor Award from the Boston Society of Landscape Architects for her thesis project which critiqued industrial agriculture systems in South Florida. She also holds a Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Studies from Skidmore College.
To expand her knowledge of subtropical ecology, Malone has also taken courses at Florida International University. There she won a Merit Award from the Florida ASLA for her design work. She continues to stay involved with FIU as a visiting critic.
In her free time, Malone enjoys surfing, gardening, and being a mom.