The 25 – Thomas L. Woltz, FASLA, CLARB

Over the past 25 years of his practice, Thomas Woltz and the team he heads at Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects have infused narratives of the land into the places where people live, work, and play, engendering stewardship and inspiring connections between people and the natural world.

Each year, some 30 million people visit the sustainable public landscapes the firm has designed in 30 U.S. states and 12 countries.

“The majority of our work is public parks,” says Woltz, “so I see our impact as connecting people to the deep history of the land by designing meaningful spaces that often reveal lost or hidden stories. The essential belief that drives our work is the idea that the land always has something to tell us—we just have to learn to listen to it and understand it.”

Woltz, who has master’s degrees in landscape architecture and Architecture from the University of Virginia and an honorary doctor of science degree from the State University of New York, environmental science and forestry in Syracuse, is on the boards of directors of the Cultural Landscape Foundation and the University of Virginia School of Architecture Foundation.

He received the Land for People Award from the Trust for Public Land in 2019 and was named as one of the most creative people in business by Fast Company in 2017.

Woltz is leading the firm in the design of significant public landscapes across the United States, Canada, and New Zealand. Current projects include the John and Alice Coltrane home in New York, Holden Forest & Arboretum in Cleveland, Cornwall Park in Auckland, and Memorial Park in Houston.u