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OLIN

OLIN is a design studio with a mission. We are a team of enthusiastic Landscape Architects, Planners, Urban Designers, and Support Staff.

From our two locations in Philadelphia and Los Angeles, we are dedicated to creating distinguished landscapes. We are a team of enthusiastic landscape architects, planners, urban designers, and support staff. From our locations in Philadelphia and Los Angeles, we are dedicated to creating distinguished landscapes and urban designs worldwide. Our work is predicated on developing innovative and tailored approaches to social engagement, environmental and social responsibility and justice, and financial and operational sustainability in the context of awe inspiring and beautiful designs built with finesse and craft. Our award-winning projects cross boundaries of scale, typology, and site condition, yet are all driven by our central mission: to create places that enhance life.

10/26/2026

Since 2016, OLIN has served as Lead Designer for the Desert Shield and Desert Storm Memorial, working with our design, artist, and fabrication partners to guide the project through federal approvals, planning, and design development. This past weekend, on Saturday, October 24, the memorial officially opened to the public on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. At the dedication ceremony, Partner-in-Charge Skip Graffam, FASLA, spoke about the site selection process and the design concept behind the memorial, sharing insight into the vision and collaborative effort that brought the project to fruition.

Located near the Lincoln Memorial at the intersection of 23rd Street and Constitution Avenue, this long-awaited monument stands as a permanent tribute to the courage and sacrifice of the American and coalition service members who liberated Kuwait.

Designed as an oasis within the larger landscape of the National Mall, the memorial draws inspiration from the Barchan Dunes of Kuwait and Iraq. Its sculpted landforms, curving pathways, and artwork reflect the desert landscape and the historic “left hook” maneuver of Operation Desert Storm.

The Storm Wall captures the speed and power of the military operation through artist Emily Bedard’s bas-relief, depicting the journey from military buildup to combat and the liberation of Kuwait. Two stainless steel raptors by artist Robert Eccleston—a Bald Eagle representing the United States and a Saker Falcon representing Kuwait—symbolize victory, freedom, and Kuwait’s return as a sovereign nation.

The Inscription Wall honors the service and sacrifice of the all-volunteer force through two intertwined wreaths representing Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. At the heart of the memorial, the Unity Shield recognizes the 41 coalition countries that supported Kuwait’s liberation. Surrounded by planting and the soothing sound of water, this peaceful space invites visitors to pause, reflect, and remember.

09/02/2026

Celebrating 50 Years of OLIN means honoring over 725 OLIN-ites—all the talented landscape architects and designers, urban planners, and skilled personnel who have been fulfilling the mission To Create Places that Enhance Life since 1976!

As we reflect on OLIN’s 50-year history and our ever-evolving purpose, we know that it’s not the projects but the PEOPLE who define OLIN’s studio practice. At OLIN, when we speak about How We Work, it’s iteratively, with curiosity and purpose, to transform lives—together.

A bit about OLINites over the years:

🌟 Parting is sweet sorrow, but we couldn’t be more proud that over three dozen former OLINites have launched their own practices—among them, some of our most valued collaborators.

📈 Big Numbers: 14 of our 15 brilliant Partners (that’s 93%!) are Professional Landscape Architects (a couple are ALSO Certified Planners)—all actively leading OLIN projects on a daily basis!

📚 Back to School! Founded by two academics out of the University of Pennsylvania, dozens of OLINites have shifted from pure practice to teaching at institutions of higher education in the US and around the globe—taking an active role in guiding the future of our profession.

🪺 We’ve called Philadelphia our headquarters from the start—settling into four different studio spaces since 1976 (not including the kitchen tables or WFH), and currently enjoying a view of Dilworth Park from the heights of Suburban Station. Our Los Angeles studio, opened in 2010, has outgrown a couple locations already—now thriving on Wilshire Boulevard with a great view of our work at LACMA!

🎂 So many reasons we’re singing out: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, OLIN! This year certainly looks like one to keep growing on!

08/03/2026

Capping off this summer celebration of OLIN’s 50-year evolution of practice and ethos, we think it fitting to also conclude a reflection on the US 250th by considering the promises of Democracy and Justice.

Democracy is a precious and practical framework granting us authority and responsibility to guide our government along the path charted in its founding documents which decree freedom, equality, and protection of civil liberties. Justice—fair application of freedoms and liberties—is central to OLIN’s purpose of enhancing life, believing that it can be advanced through the physical design of our public landscapes. At Independence National Historical Park, the OLIN-led ‘97 plan and grounds redesign elevates treasured resources symbolizing the U.S. as the birthplace of democracy; at the John Joseph Moakley US Courthouse and Harborpark we set a civic stage, establishing precedent for an active public in the realm of the law.

We nurture alignments with clients and projects to express values we esteem and advance our commitment to inclusive design, knowing that true democracy requires physical, universal access and honest narrative landscapes. The Gang of 19 Tribute Commons at Denver Civic Center Park injects accessibility at a ceremonial gateway, celebrating the nearby 1978 civil disobedience which helped secure the Americans with Disabilities Act—so impactful within our discipline.

Honored to be engaged by the Equal Justice Initiative, we support their truth-telling mission at EJI Legacy Site Freedom Monument Sculpture Garden on the Alabama River, where magnificent cultural expression relates the history and experience of this country’s horrific slave trade through a curated landscape journey.

Perhaps this project most beautifully reflects OLIN as a proponent of Democracy and Justice: in 2014 we collaborated with artist Branly Cadet to locate the powerful Octavius V. Catto Memorial at the entrance to City Hall, to appropriately celebrate Catto’s life dedicated to the abolition of slavery, the right to vote, and the establishment of equal rights. Like Catto, we aspire to be agents of change—Creating Places that Enhance Life—for All.

07/27/2026

During this US semiquincentennial, we recall projects across OLIN’s 50 years demonstrating American values we hold dear. Service to our country takes many forms, entailing self-sacrifice on behalf of our citizenry. Such engagement in our democracy inspires us as we interpret acts of valor through commemorative landscapes—immersive environments that spark curiosity, leading to better understanding, compassion, and even awe.

OLIN’s landscape for the Air Force Memorial organizes the experience to evoke an emotional response in visitors contemplating the power of an Air Force mission alongside the heartbreak of lost lives. The National Veterans Memorial and Museum is dedicated to those from all military branches who defend our country. There, the circular, undivided landscape heals by bringing people together, compelling shared reverence for our protected freedoms. The Desert Shield and Desert Storm Memorial expresses purpose—even beyond the military operation and liberation of Kuwait—to address our healing as a nation following conflict and to elevate the historic diplomacy: global cooperation, shared service, and sacrifice.

Service across our three branches of government and diplomatic corps is commemorated through place naming or monuments, and values are expressed through design at presidential libraries, embassies, and consulates. By establishing a sense of transparency, openness, and equality, the U.S. Embassy London’s landscape gives form to our countries’ shared, core belief in democracy. Presidential Libraries are more than monuments to each administration, they can leverage values that first began in service through Presidential Leadership. The Truman Library and Museum Grounds design in Independence, Missouri, leverages the institution’s landscape, and even ties into the region’s trails, to more fully express President Truman’s complex legacy through engaging walks.

OLIN is at the table, lending our voice as national principles and ideals are defined, and interpreting those into built form that will uphold the sincerest and most noble of American values, which align with our mission.

📸 17: Raptor Sculptor Robert J. Eccleston and Bas Relief

07/20/2026

As DIY environmentalism, Civic Ecology improves degraded conditions while regenerating communities around them. The nation’s 250th prompts us to consider an expansive approach—asking how we can infuse our work with the purpose and innovative spirit of the Civic Ecologist—to foster stewardship, resilience, and connection to place. How might our acts accrue to the scale of real impact, shifting perceptions and bolstering arguments for environmental policy?

OLIN plays Civic Ecologist at two projects in our nation’s capital. Our contributions to the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden over the decades turned an overlooked cultural space into a showcase of American identity. The garden matured into a sheltering, native bosque where an active public may now explore exceptional contemporary art…or skate the fountain. It blossomed into an engaging, American landscape that is free to all. Nearby, Washington Canal Park transformed a former bus lot into a public park, informing and inspiring a movement to de-pave our urban centers. As a model integration of ecological design, it received one of the first Sustainable Sites Certificates. Our innovative collaboration with the Penn’s Urban Health Lab and USFS Philadelphia Field Station through the Nature and Well-Being Project promotes Civic Ecology through a “kit of parts” for communities to retake their forsaken properties.

Data from these projects advances OLIN’s work in post-occupancy design, while subsequent projects continue to inform our innovation-centered practice. On the Hudson River in NYC, Pier 26 demonstrates the island’s indigenous ecotones, the force of today’s tidal river flows, and the ecology that can be fostered, both in the water and upon its urban riverbanks. Further up the Hudson, Sojourner Truth State Park in Ulster County recovers nature on a former 520-acre quarry complex to reveal its ecological and cultural past, foster adaptation, and promote ongoing stewardship through engagement and programming.

Through open space reclamation and infrastructure we strive to more expansively foster citizen engagement to reclaim places, so people can safely gather, develop community, and thrive.

07/13/2026

“America the Beautiful” conjures our love of country, encouraging us to preserve, restore, and steward our lands. Some 640 million acres are entrusted to 4 agencies who manage our natural, historical, and cultural treasures with implicit responsibility in the protection, health, and wellbeing of our citizenry. So OLIN leverages federal initiatives to realize America the Beautiful and our central mission, Creating Places That Enhance Life.

The Washington Monument set on 72-acres is an iconic ground of American memory, speech, and aspirational ideals. In the early 2000s, OLIN leveraged a terrorism prevention project to secure the hallowed grounds, not through a wall of protection, but through the welcoming gesture of a sweeping bench holding a plateau of common ground—a civic amenity and place for peaceful assembly, inviting tourists and welcoming worldwide allies to the US capital and its many landscapes of national commemoration.

In Cleveland, at the Anthony J. Celebrezze Federal Building Plaza, OLIN introduced an urban forest to shield visitors from harsh Lake Erie winds. With majestic trees, gently winding paths, and generous gathering space, the civic grounds echo a native Midwestern landscape while instilling a sense of protection and harmony with nature.

Federal dollars also support local enhancements that build beauty, comfort, and connectivity. Mill River and Greenway in Stamford turned a channelized, polluted waterway into a riparian valley—a new park oasis for urban flood resilience, receiving an APA, Great Places in America, Great Public Spaces award.

Throughout US history, forests and fields have been desecrated by unbridled expansion and waste. From Sea to Shining Sea, OLIN advocates for innovative land reclamation and carbon reduction to end encroachment into rural and natural resources. Origin Park, a former brownfield on the Ohio River, will regenerate ancestral forest and receive floodwaters to rebuild ecosystem services. Dilworth Park reclaimed a 70’s era, forbidding plaza as a universally accessible park infused with art and gardens to reduce heat island, encourage public transit use, and foster connection—through culture and nature.

07/07/2026

As OLIN turns 50, we reflect on our studio’s ethos in the context of our country’s democratic experiment, launched on July 4, 1776. While the struggle for equality and justice is unfinished, our Bill of Rights enshrines a critical ideal: Freedom of Assembly. Bringing people together without fear, and secure in each other’s company, is the bedrock of a resilient public realm—the starting point for a more perfect union.

OLIN’s landscape design for the Ellis Island New American Immigration Wall of Honor transforms the historic immigrant processing center site into a welcoming park honoring the country’s legacy as a land of promise and bastion of freedom.

Cincinnati’s Fountain Square and NYC’s Bryant Park leverage central, civic spaces to foster public gathering, where all scales of occasion are made vibrant and comfortable with shading trees, beautiful plantings, a balance of movement and pause, and where visibility confers a sense of invitation and safety, inducing communication and a sense of security. At our landmark restoration of Bryant Park, we championed movable tables and chairs—so the public can orchestrate how they gather, constantly re-creating their own environment for assembly.

And what better way to privilege public assembly than through streetscapes redesigned as pedestrian-centric realms? Beginning with Denver’s 16th Street Mall in 1982, OLIN has led the conversion of vehicular ways, weaving public realm directly into the urban grid. Through ongoing analysis and refined frameworks for success, four decades later we’ve directed bold, forward-looking updates infusing the 16th Street Mall with fresh energy and activation.

This legacy of fostering public assembly and urban connectivity culminates in Washington DC’s 11th Street Bridge Park. Reclaiming a decommissioned highway across the Anacostia River, this project brings disparate neighborhoods together through an innovative, community-driven co-creation process and an Equitable Development Plan. Here, local cultural meaning and expression infuse the destination landscape—where the health and prosperity of the community grows alongside the health of the river.

06/29/2026

“Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.” — B. Franklin, Founder of the University of Pennsylvania, 1740

Standing on Ben’s shoulders, we are grateful to reflect on our work in Philadelphia, where our country was founded 250 years ago, and where our practice began 50 years ago. With Philadelphia serving as OLIN’s launch pad and living laboratory, we embrace Franklin’s wisdom, actively designing together with our communities, building more equitable futures spanning the breadth of the city.

The West: Our origin story begins at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Fine Arts, today’s Weitzman School of Design, where two professors, Bob Hanna and Laurie Olin, collaborated with other faculty to create the University of Pennsylvania Campus Development Plan.

The Center: On the historic Ben Franklin Parkway, we designed multiple restorations, museum grounds, and event spaces—starting with the Art Museum gardens and reaching to the democratic civic space at Dilworth Park—enhancing Philadelphia’s cultural spine. Comcast Plaza merges the public realm with a welcoming plaza in the working heart of Center City.

The Beloved Rivers: OLIN’s commitment to our backyard includes the Schuylkill, the Delaware, and their vital tributaries. Our plan for the Central Delaware enhances urban ecology and social equity along 7 miles of waterfront, while the new Sustainability and Resilience Plan tackles climate mitigation head-on. At South Wetlands Park, derelict piers are transforming into extensive, bio-diverse wetlands. Water Works Park and the East Park Canoe House dip OLIN’s toes into the Schuylkill, while the 30th Street Station Plan and Centennial Plan envision expanses of dynamic public realm to the west. The City’s Rebuild initiative brought us to West Mill Creek and the city’s schoolyards—building engaging landscapes to uplift neighborhoods.

A kaleidoscope of projects, teaching, volunteer commitments, and real-life labs for research and innovation have made Philly our home. By continuing to recognize the deep knowledge of our local communities, we ensure our hometown remains a place that truly enhances life for everyone.

06/22/2026

OLIN’s planning practice has evolved from traditional urban design into a community-driven process underpinned by innovative spatial analysis. Over the past decade we’ve deepened our understanding to realize environmentally-just planning. Empowered by our People and Tech Labs research, we don’t just ask what goes where, but who benefits, whose voices are missing, and how we can use design to repair historic inequities. Centering community needs through data-driven, equitable planning strategies, we restore the ecological and social health of entire regions.

OLIN’s practice is rooted in a desire to understand the human condition. In our seminal collaboration with urban sociologist Holly Whyte at Bryant Park, we used direct behavioral observation to decisively alter how public spaces serve people who use them. You can trace the evolution of our planning practice directly through our work. Our early, localized visioning for UW Tacoma in the 1990s set a strong precedent for integrating new development seamlessly with the surrounding community fabric—work we were fortunate to continue with an updated Campus Plan in 2025.

Now we apply that community-focused rigor at an unprecedented regional scale. Projects like the LA River Master Plan and the LA Countywide Comprehensive Parks & Recreation Needs Assessment are global benchmarks for multi-benefit, equity-driven systems planning. These are comprehensive roadmaps for distributing resources, mitigating climate risks, and providing essential public space to millions of residents. OLIN continues to plan for the future of some of the world’s most iconic landscapes, urban districts, and rural communities in partnership with governments, non-profits, and institutions.

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Looking toward the next generation’s needs, we continue to strengthen our core skills for elevating planning as it relates to the landscape and our site design projects. From land use planning at large scales to water conservation to resilience to park systems planning, we believe planning at the scale of the impacts we have on our landscape is critical to a thriving future. Our best future is one we design together, recognizi

06/15/2026

What does resilience actually mean? For much of the 20th century, the answer was static: higher sea walls, thicker concrete revetments, and rigid infrastructure designed to hold back nature. At OLIN, we know that true resilience requires a paradigm shift toward self-healing, living infrastructure. And crucially, we understand that physical infrastructure is only half the equation—true resilience is deeply rooted in social cohesion and community strength.

A community’s ability to withstand trauma doesn’t just rely on how well a plaza absorbs a flood; it relies on the everyday social connections of neighbors who support each other in the aftermath. As we often say in our practice, “Parks are the ultimate flexible infrastructure to help our communities face and rebound from emergencies.”

This duality of physical and social resilience is the core of our environmental justice work. At NYCHA Red Hook in Brooklyn and through our comprehensive planning for Caño Martín Peña in Puerto Rico, we are designing with and for historically marginalized communities. By creating vibrant, hyper-local public realms, we help foster the vital social networks necessary to withstand climate impacts.

Physically, we are replacing outdated concrete with dynamic landscapes built to absorb the shock of a changing climate. At ResilienCity Park in Hoboken and the Hunts Point peninsula in the Bronx, the landscape itself is the infrastructure. These spaces act as natural sponges and protective shields—capturing millions of gallons of stormwater, mitigating urban heat, and protecting critical food supply chains—all while functioning as beautiful, accessible neighborhood parks.

As OLIN looks to our next 50 years, we will continue to champion designs where ecological repair and social cohesion are one and the same. Because creating places that enhance life means creating places that protect it, too.

Address

One Penn Center
Philadelphia, PA
19103

Opening Hours

Monday	9am - 6pm
Tuesday	9am - 6pm
Wednesday	9am - 6pm
Thursday	9am - 6pm
Friday	9am - 6pm

Website

http://www.theolinstudio.com/, https://linktr.ee/olinstudio

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