Ten Eyck Landscape Architects Wins 2026 Cooper Hewitt National Design Award

ASLA 2012 Professional General Design Honor Award. Arizona State University Polytechnic Campus, Mesa, Arizona. Ten Eyck Landscape Architecture / Bill Timmerman

By Jared Green

Our goal is to "design tough but beautiful projects that connect people to nature - no matter what the project is," said Christine Ten Eyck, FASLA.

Ten Eyck Landscape Architects (TELA) has won the 2026 Cooper Hewitt National Design Award for Landscape Architecture.

The 14-person firm, led by Christine Ten Eyck, is a long-time innovator in creating sustainable, equitable, and ecologically-rich landscapes in the American Southwest.

Based in Austin, Texas, the firm has designed "ecologically restorative outdoor spaces that foster community healing" for nearly three decades.

TELA focuses on the needs of public, university, and private clients first, Ten Eyck explained, but the firm is also guided by an ethos - honoring the unique character of landscapes, no matter how harsh they may seem on the surface.

"Own your geography by using tough native and adapted plants. Be inspired by every drop of water and its path. And if you have to choose hardscape over landscape, choose judicious hardscape that is integrated with green," Ten Eyck said.

This ethos also has a pragmatic logic. "Our projects are always underfunded in terms of maintenance, so our philosophy is tied to sustaining them."

The firm is known for finding and enhancing the beauty of arid, rugged landscapes, often in historically marginalized and underserved communities.

"We love our work in El Paso, Texas, and the Permian Basin, which are home to communities accustomed to hardly any thriving landscape. We always hear how ugly some of these harsh areas of Texas are. We love proving people wrong and helping these communities become even more proud of their roots and place in the world. We help enrich the regional landscape into an immersive experience."

ASLA 2023 Professional General Design Honor Award. The University of Texas at El Paso Transformation. El Paso, Texas. Ten Eyck Landscape Architects, Inc / Bill Timmerman

And she added that overlooked places offer opportunities to connect with people who otherwise wouldn't work with a landscape architect: "In less glamorous places, we listen and help underserved communities. Many of the [university] campuses where we work have students who are first generation-college students from households with average annual incomes of $25,000 or less. We love getting their input."

For many years, Ten Eyck has found ways to seamlessly enhance the climate resilience, sustainability, and biodiversity of communities in an equitable way. Her firm's work at the University of Texas at El Paso was one of the first to be SITES-certified. And earlier projects at the University of Arizona and Arizona State University remain models for their inventive use of limited water resources and ability to create habitat in a campus environment.

There are some core strategies the firm brings to all its projects. "Where we work gets floods, drought, and freezes, so we strengthen soils, use tough natives, create shade, harvest water, and use low-impact development practices."

Kingsbury Commons, Austin, Texas. Ten Eyck Landscape Architecture / Casey Dunn

Ten Eyck offered some practical, perhaps hard-won guidance to other landscape architects who may want to follow her path: "Know the landscape and geology where you work very well. Understand the maintenance the project will receive."

Landscape architect Thomas Woltz, FASLA, senior principal and owner of Nelson Byrd Woltz, was a member of this year's National Awards jury.