Approach
We believe every project begins by listening carefully to a place.
The site becomes an anchor and a source of inspiration, whose identity and character the project sets out to reveal. The designs aim to resonate with the soul of the landscape. Before any change, a thorough survey helps us understand the dynamics at work: plant and animal life, the movement of water, uses, materials and soil quality.
The history, geography, uses and social dimensions of the site inform the design. They guide the drawing and the choice of plants and materials, in a constant search for balance and rightness.
Living things are at the heart of the approach. Plants are seen as a sensitive, evolving material, in tune with the rhythms of each environment. They become a source of beauty, interaction and everyday wonder. Each project follows a planting strategy suited to its context and designed for the long term. Maintenance, essential for places to last, is considered from the very start. Light, agreed maintenance, matched to the people and resources available, allows landscapes to endure.
Consultation therefore plays a central role in the design process. Dialogue with users, residents, elected officials and technical staff enriches the design and helps people make the spaces their own. Education, a cause dear to Alice Stevens, plays a full part in passing on the idea of landscape and in making projects last.
From design through to construction, we draw on a range of technical skills and partners.
Alice Stevens
Alice Stevens is a landscape architect and artist based in Laval, in the Mayenne region of France, where she works under the name “Saje, Arts et Paysage”.
After graduating in 2016 from the École nationale supérieure de paysage de Versailles, she developed a practice at the crossroads of visual arts and landscape design. Early in her career she explored this crossover at the Villa Le Nôtre, a residency for landscape architects. Her projects, combining illustration, outreach, teaching and design work, have given her a truly multidisciplinary approach. Participatory workshops are central to her work, and the birth of her two children strengthened her interest in creating with young audiences.
After settling in Mayenne in 2020, she joined the CAUE de la Mayenne, the local architecture, planning and environment advisory body, where for three years she supported local authorities with their development projects while continuing her independent practice. This experience sharpened her ability to design varied public spaces suited to local contexts.
Alice Stevens has also deepened her knowledge of living things, seeing plants as an extraordinary material for revealing the identity of places and imagining unique, resilient spaces suited to their surroundings.
In 2024 she chose to broaden her artistic practice with installations, exhibitions and stage work. Inspired by landscapes and what makes them unique, she seeks to reveal the richness of the region through sensitive, rooted works. Her show Silice, a performance combining live drawing and singing, pays tribute to the landscapes of Mayenne and their evocative power.
Through her sensitive and inventive approach, Alice Stevens works at the meeting point of art and landscape, enriching each with a distinctive, poetic vision.
Landscape as a story, living things as material
A qualified landscape architect (DPLG) and artist, Alice Stevens founded the Saje studio in Laval with a firm belief: shaping a place starts with knowing how to read it and tell its story. Her practice sits where the rigour of design and project management meets the sensitivity of the visual arts.
What is already there
Drawing on close observation of the site, Alice Stevens sees each project as revealing what is “already there”. Her years at the CAUE de la Mayenne honed her understanding of local contexts and the issues local authorities face. This experience now helps her turn technical constraints into ways of telling the story of a place, for public spaces that are both resilient and deeply rooted in their geography.
Many disciplines serving the project
For her, drawing is not just a way of representing ideas but a way of designing. From her residency at the Villa Le Nôtre to the creation of the show Silice, she explores the evocative power of the Mayenne landscape. This dual approach lets her offer a distinctive kind of design work, in which illustration and scenography help elected officials and residents understand projects, and in which living things are used as a structural material, able to meet climate challenges while creating poetic, unique atmospheres.
Sharing and building together
Users are central. Through participatory workshops and particular attention to young people, she turns the creative process into a moment of active learning. She sees a landscape project as a shared adventure, in which outreach is what helps citizens make it their own.
A commitment to resilient landscapes
Whether for temporary installations or permanent schemes, her approach is guided by common sense and economy of means. By favouring local species and respecting soil dynamics, she designs public spaces that are not mere backdrops but living ecosystems, able to change over time and with use.
Career
- 2026 Tutor at the École de design Nantes Atlantique, Laval campus, on the DN MADE spatial design course
- Since 2024 Created the show Silice, a painted and musical performance, with Lyricx
- 2024 – 2025 Award-winning designer of the garden “The Island of Felicity”, International Garden Festival, Chaumont-sur-Loire
- Since 2023 Illustrator and artist for Le CoCoom, a collaborative communication agency in Laval
- 2020 – 2023 Landscape architect at the CAUE de la Mayenne (architecture, planning and environment advisory body)
- Since 2017 Saje, Arts & Paysage: outdoor space design, outreach and art projects; employee-entrepreneur of the COODEM cooperative, registered with the Maison des Artistes
- 2018 – 2019 Training coordinator and trainer in landscape, ecology and differentiated management, FodéOuest, Saint-Denis
- 2017 Winner of the “Yves Brunier” award, Villa Le Nôtre international residency for landscape architects, Versailles
- 2012 – 2016 Guide and group leader at the Potager du Roi and the Palace of Versailles
- 2016 Landscape architecture degree (DPLG), École nationale supérieure de paysage de Versailles
- 2009 – 2012 Bachelor’s degree in horticultural and landscape engineering, Agrocampus Ouest, Angers