2023 Class of Fellows, Willett Moss, Washington Chapter
CMG Landscape Architecture, San Francisco
For more than twenty-seven years, Willett Moss has been an advocate for sensitive revitalization of cultural landscapes through design. Informed by his Fellowship at the American Academy in Rome, Willett designs public spaces with clear purpose, both symbolic and utilitarian, recognizing how memorable landscapes contribute significantly to the creation of community identity. He cofounded CMG Landscape Architecture in 2000 and advanced a design approach rooted in pragmatism, the pursuit of innovation, and collaboration. With emphasis on creating places with a striking sense of purpose, Willett has led the firm's largest culturally and historically significant projects as design principal over the past two decades. Among his best-known projects are: Revitalization of the Lower Sproul Plaza and Student Community Center, Berkeley, with a design honoring the site's historic use as host to Berkeley's civil rights and free speech movements and its midcentury modern character, and artfully integrates social and ecological improvements into the campus center; Civic Center Public Space Plan, San Francisco, directing an interagency effort and engaging over sixty community organizations to revive historic axial relationships, welcome citywide gatherings, and serve daily open space needs with playgrounds, gardens, and memorials; and St. James Park, San Jose, CA, leading a transformation of the 150-year-old historic downtown park by repositioning existing civic monuments, adding new ones, and conserving the expansive historic tree canopy, while reorganizing an undefined public space for a variety of new community uses.
