The 2025 Wallpaper Landscape Architects Directory showcases ten groundbreaking studios from around the globe that are revolutionizing how we interact with nature through design. This year marks a significant shift from the traditional Architects Directory, which typically focuses on residential work and emerging professionals, to spotlight the inspiring international talent transforming environments without buildings.
The comprehensive survey spans five continents, featuring both young and established practices that explore diverse interpretations of landscape architecture. From ecological restoration to cultural narratives, these studios are redefining the relationship between built environments and natural spaces through innovative approaches that celebrate nature in design.
Terremoto, based in Los Angeles and San Francisco, stands out as a collective founded in 2013 by David Godshall and the late Alain Peauroi, who passed away in January. The studio operates with remarkable transparency about its ecological, philosophical, social, and moral values, making it a powerful force in the field. Their inherent openness defines both their methods and creative output, establishing them as leaders in sustainable landscape design.
From the United Kingdom, Studio Knight Stokoe, led by founders Martin Knight and Claire Stokoe, argues that landscape architecture has been overlooked, particularly regarding climate and biodiversity emergencies. The duo advocates for a stronger focus on retain, reuse, and recycle agendas for existing landscapes, questioning whether wholesale replacement of spaces, built elements, and planting is always necessary to deliver a vision for a place.
Mexico City's Estudio Ome, founded in 2018 by Franco-Mexican duo Hortense Blanchard and Susana Rojas Saviñón, has consistently questioned how we interact with nature and where to intervene to achieve perfect balance between what is built and what is alive. Their approach brings together diverse elements and consolidates learnings from various aspects of the creative and physical world.
South Africa's Rural Futurisms NPC, led by Lesego Bantsheng, aims to revolutionize landscape concepts while working primarily in rural northern South Africa. Founded in 2023, this non-profit collective includes researchers, designers, a historian, and a climate activist, all interested in imagining a collective future of rurality rooted in rich heritage. Bantsheng, who also practices urban design at Maccreanor Lavington in Rotterdam, challenges global perceptions of landscape and its community impact.
Harlem-based Studio Zewde, founded by Sara Zewde in 2018, begins every project with listening – to both land and people. The practice, now employing about 15 people, focuses on landscape, urban design, and public art, with materials, forms, and planting chosen to reflect and resonate with cultural narratives, ecology, and memory. Zewde emphasizes their commitment to designing landscapes deeply rooted in these fundamental elements.
India's VSLA, led by founder and principal Varna Shashidhar in Bengaluru, represents a practitioner who discovered her calling outdoors after earning her master's in landscape architecture from Harvard's Graduate School of Design in 2006. Shashidhar explains that landscape has a way of touching your 'chitta' – the Sanskrit word for consciousness – noting that in India, you encounter different terrain daily, from barefoot pilgrimages to tending wildflowers in gardens.
Melbourne's Emergent Studios brings together landscape architects and digital innovators, revealing that the best landscapes are never really finished. Design director Sarah Hicks welcomes the lack of control inherent in landscape design, viewing emergence as intrinsic to their approach. The studio's creative collaboration between traditional landscape architecture and digital innovation produces unexpectedly dynamic results.
Brazilian landscape architect Rodrigo Oliveira, with 30 years of experience, believes gardens must be imperfect, intuitive, and instinctive. His naturalistic perspective, inspired by Japanese garden methodology and nature's asymmetric beauty, creates deceptively simple gardens that appear untouched yet achieve profound harmony between built form and nature. He maintains ongoing partnerships with Brazil's architectural elite, including Bernardes Arquitetura and Studio Arthur Casas.
Thailand's Kotchakorn Voraakhom leads Landprocess studio in Bangkok while founding the Porous City Network to create platforms for discussing landscape architecture's evolving role. She envisions the future demanding designers break silos and reimagine their role not as solitary problem-solvers but as orchestrators of change. In Bangkok, where rising waters threaten the city's existence, this change manifests through plant-filled parks, food-producing rooftops, and innovative government complexes.
Japanese landscape architect Taichi Saito, who founded Daishizen in 2011, hopes to create gentle landscapes that allow people's hearts to feel at ease, even momentarily. His philosophy centers on creating spaces where people can feel the subtle pauses and natural movement that only nature provides, helping reconnect people to something deeper and rebuilding meaningful relationships between humans and the natural world. Saito collaborates with top-tier architects including Sou Fujimoto and Hiroshi Nakamura on projects across Japan, establishing himself as a quietly rising force in Japanese landscape architecture.
