A ghetto. A historic burial site. An acclaimed fine arts museum. No matter who you are or where you are, Walter Hood M.Arch. ’89, M.L.A. ’89 believes you should be inspired by public spaces like these.
“Everyone deserves the same kind of environmental experience with ideas that can inspire and cross demographics,” says Hood, an esteemed Berkeley professor of landscape architecture since 1990.
It’s a tenet that’s apparent throughout Hood’s large body of work, from environments as complex as the three magnificent, interrelated gardens he designed at Golden Gate Park’s de Young Museum to smaller parks in urban areas with complexities such as homelessness and drug dealing.
No matter where he is, Hood is fascinated by mundane practices of life. “Whether walking, sitting and talking with someone, or just ‘chilling out,’” he says, “sometimes we just want to be in a space. Sometimes I just want an environment that is revelatory in a simple way, like how water goes through it or the relationship of the sky to the ground.”
Hood says, “Berkeley instills in you the value that you owe a lot to the public realm.” He feels that public projects like the de Young provide opportunities for designers to give back on a different scale. “They are not spaces just created for a private client that only 12 or 20 people will experience that year,” he says. “It’s amazing to have an impact on so many people — you can’t ask for anything more.”
