Biocultural Design is a Hawai‘i-based landscape masterplanning and design studio. Operating at the intersection of ecology, culture, and community, the landscape studio focuses on design that restores biocultural relationships across the pae ‘āina. Based on Kaua’i, Biocultural Design draws from close collaboration with Limahuli Garden & Preserve—an incubator for practice-based learning with biologists, cultural practitioners, horticulturists, and stone wall builders.
We apply these principles across public, private, conservation, and nonprofit sectors, always centering community vision and ecological stewardship. Our work is grounded in a deep respect for place and a design methodology that values process, dialogue, and incremental, place-based transformation.
O ke kahua mamua, mahope ke kūkulu.
Site first, then the building. Learn all you can, then practice.
‘Ōlelo No‘eau. #245
Site first, then the building. Learn all you can, then practice.
‘Ōlelo No‘eau. #245
Biocultural Design
5-5226 Kuhio Hwy, #733
Hanalei, HI 96714
+1 (808) 482-9898
joshua@biocultural.design
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Meet Our Team
Joshua Diem, MLA
Principal Landscape DesignerJoshua Diem is a landscape designer, builder, and conservationist serving as Biocultural Landscape Design Manager for the National Tropical Botanical Garden (NTBG). Trained as a landscape architect at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Joshua brings a decade of experience with NTBG's Limahuli Garden & Preserve, where he worked in the field as both a land manager and landscape designer, recovering and mapping significant archaeological sites within the preserve and constructing new areas of the garden. Knowledgeable in Hawaiian plants, land systems, and building techniques, Joshua practices with a design approach that integrates the knowledge and resiliency of Hawaiʻi's ancestral planters with contemporary technologies to craft a vision for Hawaiʻi's future.
