Sara Zewde

Sara Zewde is founding principal of Studio Zewde, a design firm practicing landscape architecture, urbanism, and public art. Recent and ongoing projects of the firm include the Dia Beacon Art Museum landscape in Beacon, NY; the Watts Towers Arts Center landscape in Watts, Los Angeles, CA; Cuyahoga Valley National Park in OH; and the Studio Museum in Harlem, NY.

Zewde’s practice and research start from her contention that the discipline of landscape architecture is tightly bound by precedents and typologies rooted in specific traditions that must be challenged. Without rigorous investigation, these cultural assumptions will silently continue to constrict the practice of design and reinforce a quiet, cultural hegemony in the built form of cities and landscapes. Her projects exemplify how sensitivities to culture, ecology, and craft can serve as creative departures for expanding design traditions.

Zewde previously held faculty appointments at GSAPP, Columbia University, and the University of Texas School of Architecture. She holds a master in landscape architecture from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, a master in city planning from MIT, and a bachelor of arts in sociology and statistics from Boston University. She regularly writes, lectures, and exhibits her work, and she is currently writing a manuscript based on her research of Frederick Law Olmsted’s travels through the Slave South and their impact on his practice. The book will be published in 2027 with Simon & Shuster.  Zewde was named the 2014 National Olmsted Scholar by the Landscape Architecture Foundation, a 2016 Artist-in-Residence at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, and a United States Artists Fellow in 2020. More recently, she was named to the 2024 TIME 100 Next and *Wallpaper’s 300 People Shaping Creative America.