Services:
TROPICA is a team of architects, landscape designers/builders,
gardeners, and interior designers. We have come together to execute all phases of the design process from start to finish to deliver projects that are integrated at every level of detail, inside and out.
We offer all services related to architecture, landscapes, and
interiors.
We also work with other designers and are open to collaborations of all kinds.
SUBTROPICA is the landscape design/build subsidiary of TROPICA. In
addition to designing, building, and maintaining our gardens, we
have a 7-acre Native Plant Nursery located in The Redlands to supply all of our projects with the highest quality, and most sought-after native plant species. Many of these species are endangered, threatened, or protected.
PHILOSOPHY
TROPICA is team of architects, gardeners, and ecologists, equally focused on architecture, landscape design, and interior design. TROPICA’s creative team transforms with each project, growing to include other experts in the natural fields: arborists, botanists, stone masons, nursery owners, and so on… Founder Josh Ehrlich holds a degree in architecture and landscape architecture, and trained in Switzerland with Herzog & de Meuron for five years. Founding Partner Mari Tzakis is both an architect and interior designer, allowing us to work on every space of the site at once.
It is critical to us that we design sites, not buildings – we want to create places, not just structures. In fact, we prefer to consider our work to be ‘gardens for living‘. We treat interior and exterior spaces as equally important and believe this attitude opens up new types of architectural expressions, in which the garden or landscape can have a strong impact of the experience, character, and appearance of the building.
With each project, we not only honor the site’s ecology, climate, and environment but also endeavor to create new and diverse habitats for plants, birds, pollinators butterflies, and most importantly, humans. The main ingredients of our architecture are gravity, plants, soil, rock, and wind.
More specifically, we are a Design-Build office, demonstrating sustainable building practices, through the reuse and repurposing of materials and elements found directly within the site. We are a Boots-On-The-Ground, Hands-In-The-Dirt team. The site is the primary material element of our work.
We arrange Architecture and Gardens by moving and reconfiguring elements within the plot: re-claiming, re-using, and re-interpreting.
Considering the robust structural requirements within a hurricane zone, we value all existing elements of the plot to engage with these codes. The work is informed by: massive stone boulders quarried for structure and facades, carving spaces into limestone bedrock, or milling invasive trees for repurposing. Other projects re-claim discarded dock pilings as wood screens, salvage native trees slated for removal, and re-use structural lumber.
We’ve also re-purposed existing structures that were deemed unusable by FEMA. Rather than razing existing plots, we alter our drawing delivery, submitting permit sets in 10+ phases to rejuvenate vernacular homes with “grand-fathered” relationships to water, otherwise disallowed today.
NEWS
18,000 firms in the US were considered and interviewed, across all 50 states.
TROPICA is the youngest of the 200 firms honored. It is incredibly humbling to us to be included on such a list at such an early point in our careers. We are so grateful for all of your support, especially to our clients who we have had the pleasure of working with these last few years.
Links here below:
Press release:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/richardolsen/2024/10/30/architecture-and-the-american-house-now/
Selection Methodology:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/richardolsen/2024/09/19/americas-top-200-residential-architects-2025-methodology/
“Architecture is highly autobiographical. We tell the stories of our clients and sites and answer each problem individually and specifically.”
OOLITE NATURAL POOL_043
This natural pool and landscape design is created only from ingredients present at the PLOT. This project is being completed as a Design-Build effort as we are intending to use only components we find at the site, rather than adding or subtracting elements from the property.In this way, we create architecture through a process of moving, carving, re-purposing, and re-using. We believe that all projects in South Florida can be created in this manner, in order to re-establish our connection to the land, earth, and ground plane. No extra building material is being brought to the site- all stone is instead quarried from the property - carved, cut, and maneuvered to establish the pool’s geometry and form. Once the shape of the pools is carved, an entirely native palette of plants is brought to the site in order to establish a series of diverse plant communities. These ecosystems are defined by subtle variations in elevation and relationship to ground water. Plants that are installed at higher elevations have less access to water, meaning they must survive the dry Florida winters. Plants placed near the water table will purify the water and provide natural filtration to the pool which will otherwise not need salt or chlorine to keep it clean.
TENT HOUSE GARDEN INSTALL _005
Before any architectural designs were prepared, we planned the landscape design and pathways through the ancient oak forest which had been overtaken by invasive plants. Through a Design-Build and extensive removal process, the oaks were revealed and a series of curving pathways laid out. Only then, was the architecture approached.Both the qualities of the oak bark, and the geometry of the pathways were instrumental in the architectural approach to this structure.
Inspired by the fantastical garden tents of history and myth, the Pool House will be used by the family as a garden retreat. The building gently touches the ground and will be characterized by a light roof, held in tension between two rooms. The Dog-Trot house typology provides an additional reference — a central open space provides shade and ventilation, on axis with the pool, to enjoy the warm climate.
In a climate constantly affected by hurricanes, this project is an additional study in how to create new facade material expression, and structural systems, in our heavily regulated municipality.