Show Time 12:00 min

Tom received an BA in Landscape Architecture from UC Berkeley in 1978 and an MLA from the Harvard Graduate School of Design in 1983. He was a partner at Peter Walker and Partners for 16 years and in 2001 founded TLS Landscape Architecture, an international practice with offices in Berkeley, CA, and Shanghai, China. He was a Fellow at the American Academy in Rome in 1998/99 and a Fellow of the ASLA in 2016. TLS participated in the 2007 “Groundswell” Exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art, New York with the project “Shanghai Carpet”. Four “map constructions” of Bay Area landscapes, part of the 2001 “Revelatory Landscapes” exhibit, were retained as part of the permanent collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. In 2011 TLS was a finalist for the Cooper Hewitt National Design Award.
In 2024 TLS created the installation “Lantern” for the International Garden Exhibition in Chengdu, China, documented in videos and narrative.

TOM LEADER

EDUCATION:

Harvard University Graduate School of Design, MLA, 1983
University of California, Berkeley, BSLA, Departmental Citation, 1978

SELECTED AWARDS:

ASLA- NCC Honor Awards for Lantern, Chengdu, China, Lion Mountain Park, Suzhou, China, and Jingzhang Railway Park, Beijing, China, 2025 
WLA Award of Excellence, Steelworks Park, Hangzhou, China, 2024 
ASLA-NCC Awards for Baiyangdian Waterfront Park, China, Grand Bayway, Sonoma County, Calif, and Richmond Bayway, Richmond, Calif., 2023 
ASLA Honor Award for St. Louis Greenway, 2019
ASLA-NCC Honor Award for Sanlin Eco Valley Park, Shanghai, China, 2019 
ASLA Council of Fellows Award, 2016 
SCUP Open Space and Planning Award for Stanford University, School of Medicine, 2013 
ULI Amanda Burden Open Space Award for Railroad Park, 2012 
Cooper Hewitt National Design Award, Finalist, 2011 
ASLA Award for Pool Pavilion, 2009 
ASLA Award for Stabiae Archaeological Park, 2009 
Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture, 1998-1999

SELECTED EXHIBITS:

“Designers of Mountain and Water” Harvard Graduate School of Design, 2026
“Groundswell: Constructing the Contemporary Landscape”, MoMA New York, 2005
“Revelatory Landscapes”, SFMOMA, 2001
“Centering the Civic”, The 1996 San Francisco Prize, SFMOMA 1996

SELECTED TEACHING: 

USC Department of Landscape Architecture Studio, 2006
Ohio State, Glimcher Distinguished Visiting Professor, 2007/2008

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