Hawkings Partners is deeply invested in the Nashville community and working throughout the Southeast. Our clients are architects, real estate developers, educational and cultural institutions, government agencies, and entertainment and hospitality groups. They provide a wide variety of services including master planning, streetscape design, environmental graphics, and park design to name a few of their specialties.

Principals: 6
Licensed Landscape Architects: 11
Total Employees: 21

 
Years in Business: 35

Cheekwood Sculpture Trail
Hawkins Partners designed the new Carell Sculpture Trail and Gardens through 33 acres of woodland terrain at Cheekwood Estate, a 55-acre botanical garden, arboretum and museum and one of Nashville's jewels. The trail is two continuous loops, one boardwalk and one dirt path, guiding visitors through the woods and along a stream, experiencing fine sculpture in delightful and surprising ways; the trails pass fifteen pieces of notable art from the collections. The work improved the overall health of the property, including clearing the property of invasive plants, uncovering the stream, protecting the slopes and restoring the vegetation as we artfully reinterpreted the landscape.

Peabody Plaza
Peabody Plaza, within the Rolling Mill Hill district of Nashville, is a publicly accessible park alongside a new, 25-story mixed use tower, including residential, office, and retail space. Hawkins Partners was an integral part of the team in urban planning and landscape design; the building architecture is by Hastings Architecture. The project capitalizes on its prominent location overlooking the downtown core and just above the river, with views to the water and bridges just adjacent. It also enhances the Metro greenway system that connects it to Riverfront Park and Ascend Amphitheater to the north and the Rolling Mill Hill district to the south. The design incorporates multiple levels of active pedestrian plaza, seating, workspace, and greenway.

Riverfront Park
Riverfront Park, home of the Ascend Amphitheater, defines the northern river edge of Nashville's business district, improving land that had formerly been a waste-energy plant. Hawkins Partners designed the park to celebrate Nashville as Music City, creating an open park with a multi-level continuous greenway and large civic green. The 6,500 person amphitheater is its defining structure while the mile-long promenade seamlessly integrates needed flood walls into the city's infrastructure. The designers planned the spaces as outdoor adventures for all ages, incorporating fountains, slide gardens and climbing nets, recalling the activity of the long-departed Front Street wharf. The design inspiration was the Cumberland River itself and this location within a bend of the river, through the carved out limestone bluffs, remnant sand bars along its bends, and its industrial history. These elements came together as references during the design process: sinuous curves throughout the park, the multi-coursed limestone walls and building faces, and the earth-toned pavements of regional aggregates.

Vanderbilt University
In a forward-looking redesign, Vanderbilt University hired Hawkins Partners to re-envision its West End, home to its Greek houses. One goal was to better integrate that area into the campus, but ultimately the redesign meets many more goals. It serves the larger university community, better connects the academic campus with Vanderbilt Stadium, eliminates the car-dominated landscape, vastly improves the health of the neighborhood in replacing paved roads with a greensward, and the area is now universally accessible to strollers, wheelchairs and bikes for the first time in the Vanderbilt's history there. Parking moved to the nearby garage, replaced by spaces to throw frisbees and footballs, and new trees provide shade and texture at every turn. The new design increases water absorption and decreases runoff; it supports better waste management and it greatly supports the plants and trees that, like every green thing, absorb carbon dioxide and produce oxygen. The transformation is profound, winning praise from every group of campus users and the community and for-sale residential options. Designed as a walkable community, the development includes sidewalks, bike lanes, multi-use trails and roadway improvements, as well as the preservation of the existing 7-acre lake and 10.9 acres of usable park space.