Eric Kramer

Eric’s work focuses on questions of what landscapes communicate to and about their communities—whether cherished memories, bold aspirations or contested histories. A writer, teacher, and thought leader within the discipline, Eric’s approach to practice is rooted equally in basic research and applied design thinking. He leads commissions with the understanding that landscapes are cultural spaces speaking for the societies who build them and speaking to future generations who experience them. Through two decades working within consequential landscapes across the United States, he has guided the renewal and enrichment of numerous campuses, cultural institutions, and urban districts. He has been responsible for major works within the practice’s career: The Clark Art Institute, Boston’s Central Wharf Plaza and Pier 4 Waterfront Park, Duke University’s student life precinct, an Urban Forest Master Plan for the City of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a comprehensive interpretive plan for The Alamo in San Antonio. Notable current projects under Eric’s leadership include Longwood Gardens’ new conservatory complex, new gardens for Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, a comprehensive plan for the Morton Arboretum, numerous projects at MIT, an historic site turned public park in Knoxville, Tennessee, and a student life center at UNC Chapel Hill.

Eric edited Visible Invisible: The Landscape Works of Reed Hilderbrand, the firm’s award-winning monograph. And he has led award-winning field research on the performance of urban soils and canopy trees over time. Eric was an adjunct professor in the Rhode Island School of Design’s Landscape Architecture Program for many years and taught landscape history at Connecticut College. Eric has lectured at numerous universities, landscape history and design forums, and professional symposia across disciplines. Eric is a board member of The Cultural Landscape Foundation.

Growing up in Philadelphia, a city rich in garden history, Eric learned a love of the designed landscape. At Amherst College, he studied American Studies and was the editor of the student newspaper. After graduation, Eric traveled on a year-long Thomas J. Watson Fellowship, primarily to Japan, where he worked as a gardener’s assistant, and England, where he worked at Stourhead and Painshill Park, both 18th century picturesque estates. He earned an MLA—and Charles Eliot Fellowship—from the Harvard Graduate School of Design.