PROFESSOR OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE, UC BERKELEYPRINCIPAL, HOOD DESIGN, BERKELEY, CA

GHAZALEH TOUTOUNCHI

Walter J. Hood

NO:085309

introduction

Walter Hood is Professor and former Chair of Landscape Architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, and

principal of Hood Design in Oakland, CA. Hood has worked in a variety of settings including

architecture, landscape architecture, art, community and urban design, planning and research. He was a fellow at

the American Academy in Rome in Landscape Architecture, 1997.

He has exhibited and lectured on his professional projects and theoretical works nationally and abroad.

His work was recently featured in the “Open, New Designs For Public Spaces, Van Allen Institute, NY, and his firm

designed the gardens and landscape for the New De Young Museum, San Francisco with Swiss architects Herzog and

de Meuron. He is currently designing the landscape for the Autry National Museum in Los Angeles, CA,; designing an

archeological garden within the context of the South Lawn Project at the University of Virginia, and developing a set

of monuments and markers for a six mile waterfront trail in Oakland, CA.

Walter

Hood’s

published

monographs

Urban Diaries and Blues & Jazz Landscape Improvisations illuminate his unique approach to the design of urban landscapes.

These works won an ASLA Research award in 1996. His essay “Macon Memories” is featured in Sites of Memory, Princeton Press, 2001.

Hood participated in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s “Revelatory Landscapes” Exhibition 2000-2001.

He is currently researching and writing a book entitled Urban Landscapes; American Landscape Typologies.

Hood is currently enrolled in the distinguished Master of Fine Arts Program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in studio arts and sculpture, exploring the role of sculpture and urbanism. His area of teaching, the American Urban Landscape, is intertwined with his design work creating a didactic approach to the design of urban landscapes.

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Hood’s work spans the range from local, community-based projects

such as Splash Pad Park, a converted traffic island alongside Interstate 580 in Oakland, California—to higher-profile commissions— like the grounds for the new de Young Museum in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park—which are earning Hood national prominence.

Hood’s innovative public spaces are known for the way they embrace the essence of urban environments and for their links to urban redevelopment and neighborhood revitalization.

With a design approach that blends landscape architecture, anthropology, history, ecology, and community advocacy, Hood’s landscapes balance an appreciation of the physical and social heritage of a site with observation and understanding of the contemporary needs and behaviors of its users.

The Sculpture Garden at the de Young Museum, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA; Hood Design, landscape architects.

Walter Hood:

Urban

Diaries

Beautifully illustrated with original drawings, models,

and text by African-American landscape

architect Walter Hood, this volume presents a new

approach to issues of urban landscape design. Hood

calls his method "'improvisation,' because it

draws on the cultural traditions of flexibility and

adaptively that emerge from marginal

circumstances." Hood offers alternative strategies for designing open spaces

for disenfranchised, neglected, and isolated

neighborhoods.

The School of the Art Institute of Chicago

Distinguished Master of Fine Arts, 2007

University of California, Berkeley, Calif.

Master of Landscape Architecture, 1989

University of California, Berkeley, Calif.

Bachelor of Science in Landscape Architecture, 1981

Principal, 1993- Hood Design, Oakland,

Calif.

Education Studio

Awards

Virginia Key Beach Museum Competition, Miami Fl

1st Prize w/Huff and Gooden Architects 2005

Merit Award, ASLA, Northern Chapter

Oakland Waterfront 2005 Top Honor Award, Excellence

on the Waterfront Waterfront Center Award, Oakland

Waterfront October 2004 APWA 2004 Distinguished

Project of the Year Award Splash Pad Park Mayor’s Proclamation, "Walter

Hood Day", Pioneering Achievements in Urban

Landscape Design

City of Oakland, April 24, 2004 National Award of Honor

American Society of Landscape Architecture, 2003

Project: Baldwin Hills Master Plan 2001

Best of the Best, California Park and Recreation Society 2002

Project: Lafayette Square Park Merit Award, ASLA Southern

California Chapter Project: Baldwin Hills Master Plan

2001 Place Design Award,

EDRA/Places, Third Annual Award 1999.

Project: Lafayette Square Park.

Poplar Street Civic Design Competition, First Prize. Macon, Georgia. Jan. 1998

Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture, The American Academy in Rome, 1996-1997.

“Urban Diaries” and “Jazz and Blues Landscape Improvisations”

American Society of Landscape Architecture National Award of Merit: Research, 1994

Mount Vernon Riverfront Plan, Community Development Award State of Washington, 1988

Design Arts Competition, Merit Award, 1988 University of California Arboretum at Davis

ASLA Certificate For Excellence in the study of Landscape Design, 1987 Thomas Church Design Award for Excellence in Landscape Design

Lafayette Square Park, City of Oakland, California,

1999 Courtland Creek Park Oakland, California, 1990-

1997 Framework for Oakland

Public Art Program, Oakland Cultural

Arts with Hasrah and Coburn, 1992-93

Osaka/ San Francisco Sister City Garden. Osaka, Japan

with Garrett Eckbo, 1990

Selected Projects:

Foster Homestead and Burial Ground, South Lawn,

University of Virginia, Charlottesville VA, 2008

1-880 /Coleman Ave Gateway, San Jose AirportSan Jose Public Art Program, 2007

West Oakland Historic Train Depot Plaza, Oakland CA, 2008

Phillip Lifeways Plan, Charleston SC, Spoleto Art Program, 2006 Autry National Center/Southwest

Museum Landscape Los Angeles CA, 2008

East Bay Waterfront Trail, Oakland, California

with EDAW and Associates, City of Oakland, California, 2002- Splash Pad Park Renovation and

Streetscape Improvement Project, City of Oakland, California 2004

New de Young Museum Landscape Design, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA with Herzog & de Meuron Architects, 2005

Lion Creek Crossing Park, Oakland CA, EBALC, 2006

Poplar Street, City of Macon, Georgia, 2005

Abraham Lincoln Brigade Memorial, w/ Ann Chamberlain San Francisco CA Embarcadero, 2007

Baldwin Hills Park Master Plan, Los Angeles, CA with Mia Lehrer & Associates, 2001

North Richmond Urban Design and Transportation Plan, Richmond, CA City of Richmond, Contra Costa County and Metropolitan Transportation Commissionwith Dinwiddie & Assoc. and Dowling Assoc., 2000.

Richmond Neighborhood Prototype Project, City of Richmond, CA., 1999-2000

Yerba Buena Lane, San Francisco, CA. with the Office of Cheryl Barton, 2005

Exhibitions

2+2 , Hood Design and Reed Hilderbrann University of Texas, Austin November -January 2006

Groundworks: Environmental Collaboration in Contemporary Art Oct 14 -Dec 11, 2005

"Shifting Lines; Braddock PA“ Regina Gouger Miller Gallery Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh PA

Cornerstone Gardens, Awakenings, Sonoma, CA, April 2004-2005 Eucalyptus Soliloqy.

“Landscape Improvisations” North Carolina A&T State University Carver Hall,

Greensboro, North Carolina, April 1-8, 1994

Open, New Designs For Public Space, Van Allen Institute, New York, NY. Spring 2003

BACCA 1010, Landscape Paintings, Berkeley CA, Oct.6 - Oct 26 2001

Revelatory Landscapes, SFMOMA Exhibition and Installation,

Oakland, Calif. May 2001-Nov 2001, with Douglas Hollis and Ollie Wilson

Project Row Housing, “Awakenings”,

Rice University, Houston, Texas Oct. 2001- Jan. 2001

Cooper Hewitt National Design Triennial

Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum, New York City, May 2000

Harvard University 100 Year Celebration, January 2000

“Urban Diaries”, University Art Museum, Berkeley, Calif., March-June 1995

Academic Appointments

Chair, Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental PlanningCollege of Environmental Design, University of California, Berkeley, Calif. 1998 to 2002Professor, Department of Landscape ArchitectureCollege of Environmental Design, University of California, Berkeley, Calif. 1990 to presentVisiting Scholar, University of Karlshue, Germany, Summer 2000Visting Scholar, University of Versailles, France, Summer 1997Visiting Scholar, Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Spring 1995Resident Instructor in Urban DesignInternational Laboratory of Architecture and Urban Design Urbino, Italy, Summer, 1991 & 1992

example

Walter Hood is best known for developing landscapes for public spaces and areas, and much of his work occurs in the environment of urban redevelopment projects. "I prefer to work in the public landscape," said Hood. "The work is rooted in a very strong, social, participatory, grassroots ethic." FAMSF Director Harry Parker said "We feel that Walter Hood's work reflects the ideas of community, diversity, and openness embodied by the New de Young, and believe that his landscape design will accentuate and compliment what will be a world-class landmark building."

Macon Yards, Poplar Street, Macon, GA, 2004

example

Environments designed by Walter Hood ranged from parks and plazas to streets and housing developments. Recent Bay Area projects include the revitalization of downtown Oakland's venerable Lafayette Square Park, adaptation of a long-disused railway corridor in East Oakland's Courtland Creek Park, and development work on San Francisco's Yerba Buena Lane, which will stretch between Market and Mission Streets and offer pedestrian access to Yerba Buena Gardens. In addition, Hood Design recently won an invited competition to design Macon, Georgia's Poplar Street improvement and redevelopment project. The winning design, "Macon's Yards," will be implemented in 2001. Hood Design was also selected to participate in Revelatory Landscapes, a program of temporary site installations sponsored by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Baisley Park Community Garden, Jamaica, Queens, NY, 2006.

The Heart of the City and Strawberry Creek Plaza Project

IN BERKELEY, CALIFORNIAStructurally, a Heart of the City Project in Berkeley's downtown embracing an ecologically oriented design concept would:1. Create a one block pedestrian street on Center Street between Oxford Street and Shattuck Avenue.2. Create a small public plaza.3. Incorporate a "daylighted" Strawberry Creek into the site design.4. Create buildings that utilize sustainable design principles, including solar energy.

The People's Park

Here we profile two practitioners, Walter Hood and Shane Coen, who

shape the space in which we play in very different ways. Based in

Oakland, California, Hood is at home in the public realm, while in

Minneapolis, Minnesota, Coen is one of a growing number of landscape architects who are involved with

what surrounds a house before it’s even built.

The public realm is the last true democratic space,” says self-described urbanism and UC Berkeley professor Walter Hood.

Poplar Street in Macon, GA,

Walter Hood responded to lackluster building conditions on Poplar Street in Macon, GA, and at the de Young Memorial Museum in San Francisco, CA.

His design for Poplar Street in Macon, GA began as a 180-foot-wide expanse

of paving and now exists as a flourishing public plaza and outdoor

marketplace. Hoping to "remind people of who they are," Hood

designed tables to represent cotton bales and exposed an overgrown

monument to secession of the Confederacy. By engaging the local

economy and traditions, such as Macon’s brick makers and sweet

grass basket weavers, he cut costs while strengthening the community’s

connection with the space.

characteristics of Lafayette Park

Lafayette Square, centralhillock, located on the siteof a historic observatory

Design: Walter Hood, of Hood Design, Oakland, Calif.,in collaboration with Willie Pettus (architect, communityfacilitator) and Rich Seyfarth (landscape architect).

Splash Pad Park, Oakland, California, 2003.

New Modernism in Gardens & Architecture

Zahid thinks the sense of modern design iscaptured in the new de Young art museumin Golden Gate Park. Walter J. Hood isthe landscape architect for the museum.

the urban parks and master planning projects, with special focus on the meaningful integration of art and design with site and culture.

Phillips Site Plan. Drawing by Walter Hood.

the "overgrown" from the people on the Phillips community near Charleston, South Carolina.

the suburban openness, each family lives in a giant green room that is furnished with a house, outbuildings, automobiles and gardens. Walls of the room expand and contract through the interaction of the humans and the overgrown. in this rural landscape the overgrown was the thick, green stuff that made the edges of property. The overgrown expanded naturally providing more protection and was cut back when the owner need more space .