Landscape architect Walter Hood has a growing interest in Bay Area neighborhoods as generators of design ideas.
"In my book 'Urban Diaries' (Spacemaker Press, 1997), I've explained that you reshape what's there. You can use social, environmental and physical characteristics to design landscapes that link old and new," says Hood, chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning at the University of California at Berkeley.
"I prefer to work in the public landscape," he says. Hood's award-winning, Oakland studio Hood Design has - along with urban redevelopments across the country - recently completed the master plan for Lafayette Square Park in Oakland, as well as plans for Yerba Buena Lane, a brand new artery that will connect Market and Mission streets and give pedestrians access to Yerba Buena Gardens in San Francisco.