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  • Overview

    WILDING X WHY IS A LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE PRACTICE.

    We design beautiful gardens and spaces for houses, cities and cultural institutions.

    We collaborate with a global network of diverse practitioners, to spark new ideas in the company of artists, activists, and community members for cultural masterplans and urban parks to private gardens and experimental installations. We look beyond traditional associations of landscape and planting, exploring wider ideas of how we inhabit open space, seeking to reveal and repair the beauty of our environment through a felt connection with natural processes, plants/material, and people to bring a new visual language of landscape for health, well-being and value to communities.​

    Central to the WILDING X WHY approach is the paradigm of Art & Wilding: a way of aligning natural growth patterns, spontaneous creativity and artistry to activism.  Wilding, as method for restoring biodiversity in depleted environments, has dramatic implications for the health of our cities and ecological networks at large. But it is also a celebration of creative agency, fostering the impulse for self-expression which rises in correlation to our physical and mental health.

    Landscape is redefined as wilding – a way of un-taming the built environment to bring in the elemental beauty of biodiversity, natural life cycles, and geological time. To experience and take delight in these environments is to recognize our own underlying wildness – the roots of individual creativity and the ties which bind us to the earth we inhabit - wilding restores our connection to where we stand.

    By introducing elements of wildness and artistry into our lives, WILDING X WHY defines environments where communities can flourish and biodiversity thrives – whether a park, a plaza, or a cultural district. The result is a holistic vision of health, resiliency, wit and creativity, where we live in close connection to the world around us.

     

  • Clients

    Frieze
    Chicago Parks Department
    Domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire
    The Garden of the Phoenix Foundation
    Dib Bangkok Museum of Contemporary Art
    David Kordansky Gallery
    Walker Art Center
    Ayala Land
    Newfields
    Museums Commission
    Red Sea Global
    Spring Place
    TAS
    Culver City
    Treehouse
    Rooted
    Misk City
    Whitney Museum
    Ross Development Trust
    Worcester Art Museum
    City of Toronto
    91530 Le Marais
    Afreeculture
    Waterfront Toronto
    Saxavord Spaceport

  • Collaborators

    GRAS
    Yoko Ono
    Work Architecture Company
    MAD Architects
    Nancy Holt
    Atelier Tissot
    Zaha Hadid Architects
    Studio Seilern Architects
    Malcolm Reading Associates
    SvN Architects
    OMA
    Galmstrup Architects
    Studio Woodroofe Papa
    ARUP
    RTN Arquitectos
    Brian Tolle
    WSP
    Pelli Clarke Pelli Associates
    Civitas
    Joel Sanders Architect
    Beyer Blinder Belle
    Buro Happold
    World Bee Project
    BOA Lighting
    Mildred's Lane
    Jnane Tamsna
    A49

  • Team
    • Mark Thomann,
      Director, PLA

    • Kira Appelhans,
      Senior Associate

    • Amanda Coen,
      Senior Landscape Architect, PLA

    • Michelle Benoit,
      Landscape Designer

    • Jasper Flores,
      Project Manager

    • Mark Thomann
    • Kira Appelhans
    • Amanda Coen
    • Michelle Benoit
    • Jasper Flores
  • Press

    Voguer, Voler, Flotter (Float Flutter Flow)

    WHY's new Los Angeles arts campus for David Kordansky Gallery

    Ross Pavilion Competition

    LA’s WHY moves forward on park fit for Princes

    Details of Frieze Los Angeles 2024

    Frieze Los Angeles to Move to Santa Monica in 2023

    In France, WHY’s ‘Float Flutter Flow’

    WILDING X WHY at Mildred's Lane

    Rees Ridge on the Toronto Waterfront

    Talks at the Lane, Custom Lane, Ediburgh

  • Contact

    For more information, including project inquiries, speaking engagements, etc. please reach out to:

    [email protected]

Views

Why Beauty Matters

Beauty. The word has become something of a taboo when it comes to designing public spaces. For many architects and planners, the concept of beauty is too messy and subjective – but the WILDING X WHY offers a different perspective.

Project

Ross Pavilion & West Princes Gardens

Views

An Interview with Mark Thomann, Director of Wilding X WHY

Project

SKYLANDING

Views

A Walking Practice

For the WILDING X WHY team, walking is a way of working – a practice of retracing steps, allowing ideas to rise, and witnessing patterns of growth and decay.

Project

Voguer, Voler, Flotter

(FLOAT, FLUTTER, FLOW)

Project

Kordansky Gallery

Project

Artena

Project

Tchaikovsky Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre

Project

Pershing Green

Project

Bilbao Campa De Los Ingleses & Plaza Euskadi

Project

Bilbao Jardin

Project

Sejong City

Views

Wilding the Urban Landscape

WILDING X WHY Values

Project

Frieze Los Angeles, 2022 – 2024

Project

Culver City Hall

Views

The WHY Landscape Workshop takes part in the Conscious Cities Festival 2020

As part of the Conscious Cities Festival 2020, WHY’s Mark Thomann gave a talk about his strategy of Art & Wilding and its relationship to urban health.

Project

Rees Street Park

WILDING X WHY is the landscape workshop of WHY

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