Thomas Woltz

Thomas L. Woltz (born September 25, 1967) is an American landscape architect known for integrating ecological systems with cultural history in public parks and historic sites. He is the senior principal and owner of landscape architecture firm Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects (NBW).

Biography Woltz was born and raised on a cattle and crop farm in Mount Airy, North Carolina.

Woltz earned a bachelor's degree in architectural design, architectural history, and studio art from the University of Virginia in 1990. After receiving his undergraduate degree , Woltz moved to Venice, Italy, where he worked at architecture firm Giorgio Bellavitis Architetti in addition to leading the University of Virginia's summer program in Vicenza, Italy for architecture students. and later master's degrees in both architecture and landscape architecture from the University of Virginia. , the Burial Ground for Enslaved People at Monticello Machicomoco State Park in Virginia, Alethia Tanner Park, the EcoCommons at Georgia Tech , the public square and gardens at Hudson Yards , the Ismaili Center Houston, Nick's Head Station , and The Ramble in Arkansas .

Woltz has said that one of his most important moves was hiring scientists and historians as part of his staff to integrate research into the design process. "I am always looking for the story of a site... whether an asphalt parking lot in New York or a rain forest in New Zealand," he told the Wall Street Journal.

Woltz's research-driven approach begins with the idea that "The Land Is Full," an acknowledgment that all landscapes have stories embedded within them. His firm's work at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello, the Georgia Institute of Technology, Memorial Park Houston, the Nina Simone House in North Carolina, and the John Coltrane and Alice Coltrane House, among other sites, "mitigate erasure" by integrating landscape architecture with historic preservation, according to architectural historian and preservationist Brent Leggs. His work brings together "rigorous scientific research, an investigation of cultural and historical meaning, a philosophy of beauty—all built into a deep-rooted belief that we're part of nature," historian Andrea Wulf wrote. Woltz's holistic approach led the scholar and literary critic Robert Pogue Harrison to write, "Thomas Woltz has a special ear for a landscape's note or inner melody." What makes Woltz unique, according to Charles Birnbaum, is that "his work strives to make visible, interpret and ultimately dignify the ecological and cultural values that are embedded in the landscape."