WALTER HOOD is a Professor at the University of California, Berkeley's Landscape Architecture and Environmental Design Department, and chaired from 1998 to 2002. He established his Oakland, California–based studio in 1992. His studio, Hood Design, has been engaged in architectural commissions, urban design, art installations, and research since 1992. Earlier projects located in Oakland such as the Lafayette Square and Splash Pad Parks are regarded as transformative designs for the field of landscape architecture. Hood Design is also the designer for the gardens and landscape of the new De Young Museum; the new landscape for the California African American Museum in Los Angeles; and new Sculpture Terrace for the Jackson Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson, Wyoming.

Recently, Hood won design competitions for the Center for Civil & Human Rights in Atlanta, GA, and Garden Passage,a public artwork in Pittsburgh, PA. In 2009-10 Walter Hood received the Cooper‐Hewitt National Design Award for LandscapeDesign, and in 2010 was bestowed the title, Master of Design, by Fast Company Magazine