Our Team
VODA is a team of landscape architects and community planners based in Salt Lake City, Utah helping clients design great places.
We use our experience to help private citizens, neighborhoods, communities, and cities transform their space into Great Places. With experience in sustainable planning and beautiful design, VODA focuses on creating places that are context sensitive and sustainable for our western climate.
Mark Morris, PLA, LEED AP, ASLA
Principal Landscape Architect
Mark Morris, founding partner of VODA, is an urban designer and licensed landscape architect. He has extensive land planning experience throughout the Western U.S. Mark’s recent project experience includes a major green infrastructure installation for the University of Utah, a strategic plan to develop an innovation district in downtown Mesa, Arizona, and urban design for the re-birth of Regent Street in downtown Salt Lake City.
As a professional, he has worked on several projects that have received awards from the Utah Chapter of the American Planning Association, the Utah Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects and the Utah Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. He also currently works as an adjunct professor of Urban Design in the College of Architecture + Planning at the University of Utah.
Annaliese VerMerris
Community Planner
Annaliese VerMerris is a planner and project manager for VODA with a background in local government redevelopment. Her work ranges from the management of small- scale infrastructure projects to multi-million-dollar city park construction projects. Annaliese’s most recent project experience has been managing the creation and adoption of a small area master plan for a historic main street as well as the transition to a form-based code in the same area. Annaliese holds a bachelor’s degree in Sustainable Urban Planning from Sonoma State University.
Jeff Alls, M.Sc.
Landscape/Urban Designer and Ecological Consultant
Jeff Alls brings over ten years’ experience in diverse projects ranging from public spaces, new towns, commercial developments and residential properties, to green roofs, water management and ecological assessments. Jeff’s education and cultural experiences bring a unique perspective to his projects, having a background in both landscape architecture and biology. He is passionate about improving our environment through sustainable, responsible and site-specific design.
While in Toronto, Jeff worked on many diverse landscape and urban design projects, including several with LEED gold accreditation. In 2011, Jeff moved to Belgium, where he was the project landscape architect for numerous commercial, institutional and residential developments. He also acted as the ecological consultant for many projects throughout Europe, many of which have achieved BREEAM (the European version of LEED) outstanding/excellent certification.
Bryce Bushman
Landscape Designer and Urban Planner
Bryce's work ranges from small-scale site design performed as an urban designer in Chicago to large-scale community planning while working for the Guangxi Hualan Design and Consulting Group in Nanning, China. Most recently, Bryce was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland studying environmental psychology and place attachment.
Bryce is passionate about placemaking and how places can become the container of our memories. His work as a PhD researcher focused on understanding how place attachments form over time. He enjoys making things and learning how things work.
Lauren Chamberlain
Community Planner & Researcher
Lauren Chamberlain is a project manager with experience leading collaborative solutions that leverage the skill sets of any team. She has worked in industries from cosmetics to healthcare, and since 2022, helps keep VODA’s projects tracking towards on-time completion.