Cultivating Opportunities for Wonder

The Architectural League’s annual Emerging Voices award spotlights North American individuals and firms with distinct design voices that have the potential to influence the disciplines of architecture, landscape architecture, and urban design. This year, the League posed a series of questions to the eight practices that received a 2024 award, prompting each firm or individual to reflect on their working theories and methods, the opportunities and challenges of contemporary practice, and what’s next.

Based in Auburn, Alabama, design studio HILLWORKS is dedicated to the regenerative power of landscape, engaging in projects that range from studies in plant phenology to land use and rewilding strategies. Below, founder David Hill frames HILLWORKS as part of a collective that extends from the firm to his students at Auburn University to the diverse plants of the southeastern United States.

*

What does it mean to be an “emerging” practice or practitioner?

HILLWORKS has become a bit of a support group for people that have plants on the mind all the time. We’re captivated by them. So when we talk about emerging, one of the first images that come to mind is early spring here in Alabama. If you haven’t had a chance to experience it, come on over. It’s quite overwhelming. After our short winters, the ground really opens up. Everywhere you look [the landscape] is changing. Leaves begin to emerge from these surprisingly tiny buds; perennials push through the soil and dramatically change size. What an optimistic time, full of energy, growth, vibrancy. It’s electric. We’re honored to be associated with this kind of energy—what a delightful compliment.

I should also note the collective nature of that spring image. Plants of all strata are emerging at their own time and rate but together are completely changing the environment. It’s exciting to be a part of this kind of collective. It’s amazing to see the work of our colleagues as they experiment with their own work. Never complete, never finished, never in isolation, but shifting and changing together over time. It’s a delightful image.

What does it mean for you to share your “voice” in the design field, in your community, in your practice

Honestly, this is the more uncomfortable of the terms we’ve been discussing. Emerging is exciting. Emerging is energetic. Voice has other connotations. Rather than having a specific voice ourselves, we are much more excited about the potential of our practice giving a voice to a site or extending the voice of a community. Our approach begins by evaluating the various voices of a particular site. What cultural stories does this place hold? What ecological distinctions does this place offer? We try to begin with the stories of the place, even when the stories conflict with one another, which happens quite often. One of the topics we discuss frequently in the studio is working through strategies to quiet the voice of the designer and elevate the voice of the site or community.

Where do you locate your practice environmentally, socially, and within the design field?

Located in Auburn, Alabama, HILLWORKS is grounded in the ecological and cultural complexities of the southeast. We revel in the spirit of craft, thrift, and resourcefulness that permeates this region. We are optimistic. Captivated by the natural and cultural histories of every place, we strive to unearth the stories each site has to offer. Our approach to design begins by uncovering, revealing, and curating qualities already extant in the landscape. We admire what we see in the communities around us and long to build on those positive qualities.

Our work largely engages plants in some capacity. This is in part due to our genuine (and self-acknowledged nerdy) fascination with how plants grow and change. But plants also act as a bridge. In our deeply divided culture, plants offer dialogue and a shared context between people who may not feel that they have much else in common. We strive to cultivate opportunities for plant encounters and wonder. These shared experiences have the capacity to continue to knit us together in unexpected ways.

What do you see as the main challenges for your firm’s practice in today’s economic, environmental, and political climate?

As I mentioned earlier, we are quite an optimistic group of people. We see the piles of political challenges facing our world and honestly just want to focus more of our attention on our shared interest in plants. Maybe this is an avoidance strategy. Maybe it’s a way to sidestep the growing frustrations of disagreement or the painful divisions that seem to be hard to bridge. But maybe our interest in plants is a way to connect to each other on a completely different set of terms. Either way, we are drawn to rich, immersive landscapes that are full of life and diversity, full of wonder and imagination.

One of our primary challenges is that many people out there in the world don’t share this perspective of landscape. All too often, engagement with landscape is minimized. The idea of a no-maintenance landscape has been sold as an appropriate dream for our culture. Rather than trying to build some meaningful relationship with the land, so many people have a goal to minimize engagement under the auspices of achieving “maintenance-free.” Our challenge is to effectively engage people wherever they exist within this spectrum. How can we provide the most meaningful relationship with the time and energy that people are interested in offering, while acknowledging that this relationship/engagement will change over time?

When you are deciding whether to take on a project or collaboration, what questions do you ask yourself? What questions do you ask the client or collaborator?

Design projects are intense, long-term relationships. They take an enormous investment of energy and time, and we must believe in the work we are doing. First and foremost, we ask ourselves if we generally share values with the network of individuals involved. I suspect that that approach is pretty common across most design firms.

Maybe it’ll be more specific to talk about projects we try to avoid. We typically don’t take on single-family residential projects unless the clients are interested in the possibility of us experimenting with our research questions within that project. This approach allows us to speak soberly about our current curiosities and see if the client is interested in any of those being explored within their project. We have a similar approach to developer-driven projects. We will look for opportunities within projects to explore our current interests. The more public a project is, or the more collective it is, the more likely we are to pursue it.

How would you define research in your practice?

We’re admittedly broad and inclusive with how we define research. Simply put, we think research is anything that allows one to explore and cultivate curiosities. Research happens at many scales. But we’re sincere in that we want to first cultivate curiosity before we worry about means and methods, measurement strategies, or rigor of investigation. The term “research” too often carries baggage of pretentiousness or demands to be solemn and serious. We are definitely interested in the measurement of information, but we also want to make room for the articulation of other qualities that aren’t best evaluated through quantification. Our research interests often share characteristics of being hands-on, tactile, and experiential, and oftentimes immersive and atmospheric.

Do you teach? What is the interplay between your teaching and practice?

I’m about to begin my 16th year teaching in the landscape architecture program at Auburn University. I’m admittedly biased, but we have a pretty incredible design program here. When exploring teaching positions, I was looking for a place that valued creative work as a form of scholarship and Auburn has a rich history of integrating teaching and practice.

We are fortunate to be able to explore ideas both through the halls of academia as well as the trenches of practice. This back and forth is incredibly rewarding. As we strategically try to cultivate curiosity within the program, we have an opportunity to do the same within practice, each venue offering a slightly different set of tools.

Over the years, my teaching has largely revolved around plants, regenerative technologies, and design studio. It’s no surprise that these are also the topics that I have particularly enjoyed engaging in practice.

Over the last five years, I’ve been collaborating with Emily Knox, my colleague at Auburn, to re-evaluate and refine the beginning design curriculum for our graduate program. This process has been particularly rewarding in that it has caused us all to be much more intentional and articulate about how we introduce design thinking to students. These deliberate and critical discussions have been fascinating and continue to fluidly shift between practice and academia.

Do you prefer to work in a certain scale or typology, or do your projects range in scope? Is there a project type that you would like to design for but have not yet?

Our projects do range substantially in scale and scope. We started out with more developer-driven work, but we are intentionally shifting into more public work. We absolutely love working with complicated existing conditions, especially where areas of a site have become distinct from one another in some capacity.

When do you consider a project complete?

Time is critical in landscape architecture. Landscapes continue to evolve and change over time. Not only do landscapes change seasonally, but plants join forces to drastically alter the physical and chemical properties of a place. This process of succession is fascinating, and we love working with such a dynamic medium.

With that said, we genuinely believe that this ongoing transformation doesn’t make the project feel incomplete. Our projects are completed fairly quickly, but then that landscape is able to transition to another complete version of itself, and then another, and another. Our hope is that all of these manifestations continue to feel complete as they evolve.

Can you name a person, book, film, or other source of inspiration?

We find great inspiration in the cultural and natural systems that overlap and intertwine in the southeastern landscape: plant communities that emerge from particular geologic conditions, farms that have been managed for one product for decades, urban wilds that thrive in unfathomable soils. We are constantly in awe of these places that are quirky, immersive, and atmospheric.

What did you last draw?

We recently installed an old-school chalkboard in the studio, and I have thoroughly enjoyed drawing on it. Since it’s such an ephemeral medium, we aren’t worried about the final version of any drawing but can talk through ideas quickly and collaboratively without the concern of the artifact. It’s lovely. No one seems to be hesitant to grab the chalk. Why would you be? It’s gone so quickly that anyone is able to take a pass.

What do you need to do your best work?

The work that we are most proud of has emerged out of dialogue. I’ve spoken quite a lot in this conversation about the dialogue we have with the site during the design process. That approach is crucial to our work, but some of the most powerful dialogue is among the design team within the studio. I’m fortunate to work with incredibly thoughtful people that are interested, open, and engaged in the design process. So many people have participated in these conversations through the years, but Sadie Chitty, Rachel Perez, and Allyssa Clements pour their hearts into the work we are doing in the studio right now. Our best work emerges when we take the time to talk through the work together, challenging assumptions, exploring concerns, offering adjustments.

What’s next?

Practice is ever-changing, and HILLWORKS is no different. As I mentioned earlier, we do hope to work on more public projects. We have really enjoyed working on public projects in the past, and we would like to continue to do that kind of work.

We also hope to expand our scope to be able to include more engagement with our projects after the initial installation has been completed. All too often our engagement substantially decreases once the installation is completed, but we would like to establish some longer relationships with these places. We hope to be more involved with the long-term management that guides how these places change over time. We want to unpack the design potential of maintenance regimes.