This event will occur in Central Time.
Walter Hood (MFA 2013) is the creative director and founder of Hood Design Studio in Oakland, California. Hood Design Studio is a cultural practice that works across art, fabrication, design, landscape, research, and urbanism. He is also professor of Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning and Urban Design at the University of California, Berkeley. He lectures on and exhibits professional and theoretical projects nationally and internationally. He was recently the Spring 2020 Diana Balmori Visiting Professor at the Yale School of Architecture and the Spring 2021 Senior Loeb Scholar for the Harvard GSD Loeb Fellowship.
Hood creates urban spaces that resonate with and enrich the lives of current residents while also honoring communal histories. He melds architectural and fine arts expertise with a commitment to designing ecologically sustainable public spaces that empower marginalized communities. Over his career, he has transformed traffic islands, vacant lots, and freeway underpasses into spaces that challenge the legacy of neglect of urban neighborhoods. Through engagement with community members, he teases out the natural and social histories as well as current residents’ shared patterns and practices of use and aspirations for a place.
The Studio’s award-winning work has been featured in publications including Dwell, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Fast Company, Architectural Digest, Places Journal, and Landscape Architecture Magazine. Hood is also a recipient of the 2017 Academy of Arts and Letters Architecture Award, 2019 Knight Foundation Public Spaces Fellowship, 2019 MacArthur Fellowship, 2019 Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize, and most recently, the 2021 United States Artists Fellowship. Hood is a fellow at the American Academy in Rome and one of the 2021 elected members of the Academy of Arts and Letters. Hood Design Studio has also been featured in the 2021 AD100 list.
Established in 2006 by a generous gift from Bill and Stephanie Sick, this distinguished visiting professorship enables internationally renowned artists and designers to visit and teach at SAIC.
View the Walter Hood SAIC Flaxman Library Resource Guide for additional information about the artist.
