Peter Walker

Peter Walker (born 1932 in Pasadena, California, U.S.) is an American landscape architect and the founder of PWP Landscape Architecture.

Early life and education Walker grew up in California, where he attended the University of California, Berkeley. Walker started out studying journalism but quickly changed his field and received a Bachelor of Science in Landscape Architecture in 1955. He did graduate studies at the University of Illinois, where he studied under Stanley White.

Walker attended the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where he received his master's degree in Landscape Architecture in 1957 and won the school's Jacob Weidenmann Prize that year.

Career At Harvard University, Walker had been deeply influenced by his professor, Hideo Sasaki. After graduating, he worked for Sasaki. Shortly thereafter, they both went into partnership to form Sasaki Walker Associates in 1957. Walker and Sasaki went their separate ways in 1983, and Walker entered a partnership with his then wife, landscape architect Martha Schwartz.

In the early 1990s, Walker formed Peter Walker and Partners. The company developed into an interdisciplinary firm that employs around thirty to forty landscape architects. The company has received many awards and co-designed the World Trade Center Memorial in New York with architect Michael Arad.

Walker designed the garden for the Nasher Sculpture Center. In 2013 he was involved in a public argument with the architect of a neighboring building, Museum Tower, because the glare from the glass was damaging the vegetation. Walker described it as "public desecration".

Peter Walker is also a co-author of Invisible Gardens, which touches on the modernist movement in the United States and the comparison of other landscapes to those in Europe. The book discusses influential landscape architects, including Sasaki.

Awards 2004 - The ASLA Medal, the highest medal of the American Society of Landscape Architects. 2004 - ASLA Honor Award: Design, Nasher Sculpture Center 2005 - The Geoffrey Jellicoe Gold Medal from the International Federation of Landscape Architects. 2008 - The ASLA Landmark Award for Tanner Fountain at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 2010 - Knight Management Center: Stanford GSB awarded Green Project of the Year by the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal 2012 - The J.C. Nichols Prize Winner for Visionaries in Urban Development from the Urban Land Institute 2012 - Peter Walker & PWP Landscape Architecture awarded the Liberty Award by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. 2012 - The ASLA Medal Recipient. 2014 - The James Daniel Bybee Prize Recipient.

Notable projects

Australia Barangaroo Headlands Park in Sydney, New South Wales Millennium Parklands in Sydney

Europe Novartis Headquarters in Basel, Switzerland The Sony Center in Berlin, Germany Munich Airport - Hotel Kempinski in Munich, Germany

United States National September 11 Memorial in New York, New York Transbay Terminal in San Francisco, California Jamison Square in Portland, Oregon Pixar Headquarters in Emeryville, California Constitution Gardens in Washington, D.C. (won competition for partial redesign in 2012) Glenstone in Potomac, Maryland Newport Beach Civic Center and Park in Newport Beach, California University of Texas at Dallas Campus in Richardson, Texas

Asia Jewel Changi Airport in Singapore Marina Bay Sands in Singapore Ciudad de Victoria in Bocaue, Philippines

Publications

Books Walker, Peter, and Leah Levy. Peter Walker: Minimalist Gardens. Washington, DC: Spacemaker, 1997. Print. Invisible Gardens: The Search for Modernism in the American Landscape. Walker, Peter, and Melanie Simo. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT-Press, 1998. Print.Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT-Press, 1998. Peter Walker and Partners: Defining the Craft. Walker, Peter. San Rafael, CA: ORO Editions, 2005. Print.