In 1985, Warren Byrd and partner Susan Nelson founded Nelson Byrd Landscape Architects. They established a vibrant and growing practice that would eventually become Nelson Byrd Woltz in 2004, when Thomas Woltz became a partner. Together, Byrd and Woltz forged an internationally recognized practice with 45 staff members and offices in Charlottesville Virginia and New York City. Both are Fellows of the American Society of Landscape Architects, among the highest honors achieved in the profession. Woltz, who became the sole owner of the firm in 2013, has expanded upon the original philosophical mission creating opportunities that use design to facilitate the restoration of damaged ecological infrastructure within working farmland and urban settings, thereby creating new models of biodiversity and sustainability.
Committed to design excellence, education, and conservation, the firm is engaged in a broad array of public and private projects including public parks, academic institutions, botanic gardens and arboreta, memorial landscapes, corporate campuses, and urban planning. The firm actively seeks a diversity of project scales and types to cultivate the creativity of the professional staff. The varied backgrounds of the staff include studies in the fields of landscape architecture, architecture, anthropology, biology, economics, theology, philosophy, zoology, horticulture, history, art, art history, and architectural history. This broad knowledge base supports the firm’s collective creativity and ability to respond to diverse client needs.
To date, the firm has practiced in over 25 states and 10 countries, and has garnered over 100 awards within the past 15 years, including the prestigious Amanda Burden Public Open Space Award for Citygarden in St. Louis. The work of the firm has been featured in numerous national and international publications and is the subject of a monograph published by Princeton Architectural Press.