2025 Fellows: Gary Hawkins, FASLA, Tennessee Chapter

Hawkins Partners, Nashville, TN
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Gary Hawkins spent his nearly forty-year career tirelessly and persistently introducing, advocating for, and implementing the foundational public landscape design concepts that helped make Nashville the dynamic, thriving, and livable city that it is today. Under Gary's direction, HPI designed dozens of high-profile and award-winning cultural, academic, residential, and commercial works such as Public Square, the Carell Family Woodland Sculpture Trail at Cheekwood Estate and Gardens, the 5th and Broadway multiuse development, and the LEED Platinum Bridge Building site design. As a young landscape architect, he set up shop in Nashville's then neglected downtown all the while becoming active in nonprofits and various associations for preserving and revitalizing the city. He was instrumental in getting the Metro Greenways Commission established and designed Nashville's first two greenways. Gary broadened his reach by becoming the first landscape architect commissioner on the Metro Historic Zoning Commission and becoming a board member for The DISTRICT, a nonprofit dedicated to fostering economic revitalization and preservation of Second Avenue, Broadway, and Printer's Alley-three historically and architecturally significant sections of downtown. He started a campaign to get the widely inaccessible Cumberland River revived and was contracted to develop the "Cumberland River Greenways Master Plan," which jumpstarted what was ultimately the addition of 6,300 acres of parks and 85 miles of greenways. An award-winning professional, Gary's work and vision are evident in downtown Nashville, where his thoughtful designs have transformed public landscapes into vibrant spaces, and reflect a steadfast commitment to enhancing urban environments and fostering community through design and elevating the profession along the way.