Walter J. Hood is a designer, artist, educator, and founder of Hood Design Studio in Oakland, California. Since establishing the studio in 1992, he has developed a body of work encompassing neighbourhood parks, civic spaces, museum grounds and memorial landscapes. Through landscape architecture and public art, Hood creates spaces that foreground cultural histories and strengthen public recognition of communities and experiences that have frequently been overlooked.
Projects such as the African Ancestors Garden in Charleston, South Carolina, and Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing Park in Jacksonville, Florida, bring obscured histories into public view and affirm the cultural contributions of communities absent from civic narratives. Hood’s work begins with a close reading of each site’s practices and the social and political forces that have shaped it. Although his projects vary in form, each responds to its setting, history, and community.
Walter’s many honours include a 2019 MacArthur Fellowship, the 2023 WSJ Magazine Innovator in Design Award, the 2025 Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal in Architecture, and most recently recognition as one of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People of 2026.
