Cinda Gilliland

Over the past 13 years, Cinda has brought strong conceptual ideas and a highly attuned eye for design and art to SWA projects ranging from academic and corporate campuses to community parks. She has a particular interest in integrating agriculture into projects ("to remind people about our relationship to natural cycles of growth") and in taking "cues, precedents, and inspiration from working and vernacular landscapes." She has worked mostly in California, Arizona, and Nevada, amassing a deep understanding of desert and tropical plants along the way.

Interests

Anything with an agricultural component or a relationship to agriculture and its history; art-related projects (museums, sculpture parks); projects with good planting design potential; any project with a client who is adventurous (and if they understand art, even better).

Inspired by

Bruce Mau, Gee's Bend quilts, and artists in general; native landspaces; vernacular architecture; Frank Gehry; good design; the ocean, especially the Pacific; California landscapes; Kathryn Gustafson; dry western landscapes; the grittiness of New York City; the freshness of San Francisco on a clear day; the gardens of Villandry; the Dogon of Mali; and the following quote by the poet Louise Bogan: "No woman should be ashamed if [through her work], she tries to give back to the world a portion of its lost heart."

Education

Master of Landscape Architecture from University of Virginia, 1992; Bachelor of Arts in Art (Drawing and Painting) from Stanford University

Awards

2006 Northern California Chapter ASLA, Honor Award: Buchanan Field, Concord, CA.

2006 Northern California Chapter ASLA, Merit Award: Stanford Alumni Center, Stanford, CA.

2006 Northern California Chapter ASLA, Merit Award: Silicon Graphics Inc. Crittenden Campus, Mountain View, CA.

2003 AIA San Francisco Chapter, Excellence in Design Award (Best of Bay): Milpitas City Hall, Milpitas, CA.

2000 National Trust for Historic Preservation Award: Stanford University, The Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Center for the Visual Arts, Stanford, CA.