Mario Schjetnan and Grupo de Diseño Urbano win the 2025 Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Prize

Mexico City-based landscape architect Mario Schjetnan and the firm he founded and leads, Grupo de Diseño Urbano, have been revealed as the recipients of the 2025 Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Prize.

Organized by The Cultural Landscape Foundation, the biennial Oberlander Prize celebrates landscape architects working at the intersection of design and social justice causes. As noted by TCLF, the Prize is bestowed upon recipients who are “exceptionally talented, creative, courageous, and visionary” and have “a significant body of built work that exemplifies the art of landscape architecture.”

Schjetnan and GDU were selected by an international, seven-person jury from more than 300 nominations. The Prize, which was first awarded in 2021 to Julie Bargmann, includes a $100,000 award, along with two years of public engagement activities that aim to increase the visibility of the honoree’s work and of landscape architecture as a whole.

This announcement comes not long after the tragic passing of Chinese landscape architect and urban planner Kongjian Yu, the previous recipient of the Oberlander Prize in 2023.

Schjetnan earned an undergraduate degree in architecture from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in 1968, which was followed by a Master of Landscape Architecture from the University of California, Berkeley in 1970. In 1984, he was awarded the Loeb Fellowship from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design to pursue advanced environmental studies.

Before establishing GDU in 1977, Schjetnan was the first head of urban and housing design at INFONAVIT, a government initiative created to provide workers’ housing. Here, Schjetnan contributed to the creation of a series of unprecedented environmental and urban design concepts, working in 110 cities in Mexico and building over 100,000 homes over five years.

With GDU, Schjetnan has designed and constructed an extensive body of work, including landscape architecture, urbanism, and architecture throughout Mexico, other parts of Latin America, China, the Middle East, and the United States. The projects emphasize water sustainability, the recycling and repurposing of post-industrial sites, and the rehabilitation and improvement of urban and natural public spaces.

The firm’s portfolio currently includes parks, which account for nearly half of their business, residential development, post-industrial sites, museums, and others. Notable projects include improvements to Chapultepec Park, the oldest park in the Americas, and Xochimilco Ecological Park, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site. In the United States, GDU is behind San Pedro Creek Culture Park in San Antonio, Texas, as well as Cornerstone Festival of Gardens in Sonoma, California.

“In a time of rapidly developing megacities and cultural homogenization, Grupo de Diseño Urbano (GDU), founded and led by Mario Schjetnan, is a strong voice for social engagement and environmental justice in tandem with the art of landscape architecture,” said the Prize’s Jury. “Their work bridges the ethical and the aesthetic, advocating for access to nature in the city as a fundamental human right.”

“GDU’s portfolio of built work delivers tangible impact and a model for delivering public landscapes as essential infrastructure in a rapidly urbanizing world—home to more than half of the world’s population,” the jury continued.

A video of Schjetnan describing the trajectory of his life and career can be viewed below.