OLIN’s signature is not a style or palette. It is a dedication to craft, a commitment to quality, collaboration, and a genuine interest in the human condition, paired with the expertise to respond to the complex challenges of the 21st century inherent in our communities and landscapes @scale. With deliberation and clarity, we create transformative places that bring new life while honoring past and extant cultural, natural, and social conditions.
You can trace this evolution directly through our work. In the late 1980s, our public realm design for London’s Canary Wharf set a powerful new baseline for transforming post-industrial urban fabric into vibrant, democratic civic space. Today, we build on that foundational legacy with projects like the Bud and Susie Rogers Garden at the Akron Art Museum and Grace Farms in Connecticut. These contemporary landscapes reach beyond civic gathering; they function simultaneously as deeply integrated cultural commons and vital, regenerative ecological havens.
From human-centered affordable housing, to inspirational environments for the arts, to invaluable local parks, to economic hubs, to innovative campuses, OLIN seeks to transform the everyday lived experience of landscape to one of connection and inspiration—for ALL.
1970’s Corporate America was moving from city centers to bucolic, multi-acre sites—often former industrial brownfields and agricultural fields. Re-imagining the workplace landscape beginning with J&J Baby Products, OLIN advocated for what was then considered “messy” nature—meadows, hedgerows, and stormwater systems presented a radical shift for corporate sensibilities.
Since then, OLIN has advanced sustainable practices through both innovative and expertly executed traditional techniques: capturing heat from mainframe computing to protect microclimate-sensitive biomes; engineering site-wide stormwater reuse to support mechanical systems; submerging building programs for built-in climate control and to minimize landscape encroachment; and recharging water tables through deft grading and ancient wall-building methods.
Today, as companies edge back toward urban centers, leadership, employees, and communities expect far more than aesthetic integration, demanding high-performance, regenerative design. In collaboration with visionary project teams—and driven by the rigorous inquiry of our Eco Lab—OLIN remains at the forefront of ecological systems integration. These achievements can be seen at our landmark campus projects like Apple Park and Google Bay View. The Google Bay View landscape is recognized globally for its regenerative capacities, closed-loop water sustainability, and amenities—fostering both ecosystem health and human wellbeing. Apple Park restores native Californian ecology at a massive scale, seamlessly integrating immense environmental performance with iconic architecture.
Moving forward, we aren’t just carrying these lessons with us; they are our baseline. We continue to design landscapes that do more than adapt—they actively restore our planet’s biodiversity, design in true partnership with nature, and build resilience for an undeniably changing future.
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.
From the original vision plan for Battery Park City to reimagining the LA River to considering the future of flood or fire resilience for landscapes across the country, 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.
Often it is the quality and character of the public realm and landscape that is most memorable when we think about our favorite cities, communities, or districts. We strive to create connected, publicly accessible open spaces that can become an equitable stage for everyday life.
Planning is a key part of the design process, allowing for “upstream” innovation, policy shifts, and imaginative visions that help future site designs come to life. Often decisions at this scale play out for decades to come, so it is important to have the right people in the conversation.
At OLIN today, our teams continue to innovate, creating tools for spatial analysis that lead the way in best practices for geographic information systems, parks planning, urban design, and community engagement. Our teams recognize that the local communities we work with have deep knowledge that should help shape the future of the landscape. We believe that our best future is one we design together, recognizing the value we all bring to the table. Rising tides raise all boats, and uplifting our most marginalized communities through equitable planning strategies creates a better future for all.
As we look toward the next 50 years, we continue to strengthen our core skills for elevating planning as it relates to the landscape. 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.
As Director of the University of Pennsylvania Landscape Development Plan, 50 years ago Dean Sir Peter Shepherd enlisted his Landscape Architecture faculty, Laurie Olin, Robert Hanna, Carol Franklin, Colin Franklin, Leslie Sauer, Rolf Sauer, and Narendra Juena as Deputy Directors. Ian McHarg enthusiastically supported and encouraged not only the participation of his faculty, but also students.
The design team did more than transform Penn’s campus, the participants began the transformation of the practice of landscape architecture and urban design. They were to become founders of legacy firms – teaching studios and classes during the days, and at nights and weekends were developing the Plan on Penn studio drafting tables.
When I. M. Pei partner, Harry Cobb, asked Laurie to join the team for the 125-acre J & J Baby Products headquarters, Laurie Olin and Bob Hanna had their first job – but no office. So, they continued to draw on Penn’s studio tables, at their kitchen and dining room tables, and hired one of their students, Rob Flemming, and Hanna/Olin was created.
Students had practitioners as teachers and teachers had a place to practice with a ready source of employees; in turn launching more firms, deans, chairs, faculty, and scholars. Philadelphia was its center.
OLIN at 50 remains dedicated to practice, teaching, and research. Teaching feeds the learning, and learning the teaching.
OLIN also remains dedicated to the city it started in, Philadelphia. After the University of Pennsylvania Landscape Development Plan, OLIN has gone on to work on over 30 other projects at the campus, and continues to teach and lecture there.
At Philadelphia’s core is the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, the spine of the city’s cultural district. After completing the Master Plan in 2003, OLIN has continued its work to enhance the parkway, returning is originally designed central artery of museums, educational institutions, and civic event spaces, completing 8 subsequent projects along the parkway, from the Philadelphia Art Museum to Dilworth Park at the foot of City Hall.
OLIN’s commitment to our own backyard is also demonstrated in our dedication to our rivers, the Schuylkill River and the Delaware River. OLIN’s work on the Master Plan for the Central Delaware focused on enhancing the urban ecology of Philadelphia in order to promote social equity and economic well-being, and sought to develop over 1,100 acres of waterfront through a green infrastructural approach. The plan featured access to public parks at half-mile intervals, using landscape as the connective tissue between new and old fragments of the city. OLIN’s open space vision described in the 2012 Master Plan for the Central Delaware called for an extensive wetlands park on the derelict piers and silted-in slips south of Washington Avenue. Today OLIN is working on South Wetlands Park, slated to open XXXX.
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