Guest Lecture

“Tom Leader received a BA from UC Berkeley in 1978 and a Masters in Landscape Architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design in 1983. The following sixteen years were spent as a partner in the firm of Peter Walker and Partners, designing and building numerous award-winning projects throughout the U.S. and internationally. Two projects under his direction won national ASLA Honor Awards — Longacres Park in Seattle, Washington, 1994, a pioneering wetland park and bio-filtration system, and a planning award for Asahikawa Riverfront Park, 1998, on the island of Hokkaido, Japan.

In 1996, Tom Leader won the San Francisco Prize in a competition for the design of Philip Burton Federal Plaza leading to a related exhibit at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA) in 1997. In 1998, he was awarded a year-long Rome Prize Fellowship in Landscape Architecture at the American Academy in Rome, focusing on the 3,000 year history of “sedimentation”. He has been featured in two exhibits at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art including the 2001 on-site installation “Coastlines” as head of a collaborative team for the exhibit “Revelatory Landscapes” with Anu Mathur and Dilip da Cunha. SFMoMA has acquired several of “map construction” works for their permanent collection. Tom Leader has served as a panelist for the Mayor’s Institute on City Design, an AIA Regional Urban Design Assistance Team in Springfield Ohio, and the NEA Design Arts & Policy Panel. Tom Leader Studio (TLS) was founded in 2001 and has been continuously involved in international competitions since, including Fresh Kills Landfill, NYC in 2001, Shelby Farms Park, TN, in 2008, and the 2002 Master Plan Competition for the World Trade Center site. Tom Leader lectures frequently and has taught at Ohio State University in 2008, where he served as the Glimcher Distinguished Visiting Professor.

Art, humor, and irreverence play a role in the TLS culture as well. TLS produces on-site temporary installations most recently including “Snagged”, in 2009, at the Rubin Center Gallery at the University of Texas, El Paso concerning the U.S. / Mexico border. In 2005, “Break-Out” a spatial riff on screen doors, rural life, and Johnny Cash, was featured on NPR Morning Edition. In 2010 TLS was pleased to receive an annual “Tom Waits Award” from FASLANYC for “Break Out”. In 2010, Tom Leader Studio, Three Projects, edited by Jason Kenter, was published by Princeton Architectural Press. Currently in progress is a documentary film directed by Michele Forman about the trains and community in the context of Railroad Park.”

-source: http://www.tomleader.com