DESIGN PHILOSOPHY 
We believe the most enduring landscapes are not invented — they are uncovered. Every site carries its own logic: in its geology, its cultural memory, the way people move through it and claim it as their own. Our role is to read those layers carefully, and to design in response to what is already there.
This means resisting the impulse to impose and instead working with the grain of a place — ecologically, spatially, and culturally. The result is landscape that feels inevitable rather than applied: functional, resilient, and alive to the life of the people who inhabit it.

 

Adam van Niewenhuizen
Principal Landscape Architect and Environmental Planner

Adam van Niewenhuizen is a South African landscape architect and environmental planner with over 25 years of experience working across Africa and the Middle East. His work focuses on the transformation of urban and rural landscapes into resilient, socially grounded, and ecologically responsive environments.

Trained at the University of Pretoria and the University of Cape Town, Adam brings together design, systems thinking, and environmental planning. His approach is rooted in reading the landscape—understanding the layered relationships between ecology, infrastructure, and human use—and translating these into clear spatial strategies and built form.

Before establishing his independent practice in 2004, Adam worked as a Senior Landscape Architect for the City of Cape Town. There, he contributed to a number of foundational public projects, including the Blaauwberg Conservation Area, Edith Stephens Wetland Park, Princess Vlei, and key inner-city public space upgrades such as the Foreshore pedestrian network.

Since then, his work has expanded across diverse geographies and scales—from large-scale urban frameworks to detailed public space interventions. Notable projects include the Chiveve River rehabilitation in Beira, Mozambique; Agodi Park in Ibadan, Nigeria; the Kings Beach redevelopment in Gqeberha; and multiple public space and infrastructure projects across South Africa.

In parallel, Adam has worked extensively in Saudi Arabia as lead designer on high-level projects and international design competitions. His involvement in these large-scale initiatives has engaged with ambitious national development agendas, complex environmental conditions, and the rapid transformation of new urban landscapes—further sharpening his ability to operate at strategic and territorial scales.

His projects are recognised for their ability to integrate ecological systems with public life—transforming degraded or underperforming landscapes into active, legible, and enduring places.

Adam has received design awards from the Institute for Landscape Architecture in South Africa (ILASA) for projects including Kings Beach, the Cape Town Foreshore, and Agodi Gardens.

Alongside practice, he contributes to teaching at the University of Cape Town, working with postgraduate students in landscape architecture and environmental design.

Leigh Brown | Regeneration Designer
Leigh Brown joined Earthworks in 2026 while completing her Bachelor of Honours in Landscape Architecture at the University of Cape Town. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism and English from Rhodes University, a Permaculture Design Diploma, and two decades of hands-on experience designing and implementing regenerative landscapes across Cape Town’s most complex urban terrain.
Leigh’s ecological literacy was earned in the field, not the studio. Through SEED, the public benefit organisation she founded in 2000, she pioneered community-scale regenerative design in South Africa — running outdoor classroom schools, community food systems, and youth green economy programmes that reached tens of thousands of people across the Cape Flats. The work attracted the Deutsche Bank Urban Age Award, the World Design Capital Innovation Prize, and an Ashoka Fellowship nomination, and mobilised R58.9 million in project funding.
With a foundation in ecological systems and a growing spatial design practice, Leigh brings to Earthworks a conviction that healing the ecology of a landscape is not a constraint on the design process — it is the design process. She is especially drawn to the space where community agency and ecological restoration reinforce each other, and where rigorous site analysis can reveal what a place is already trying to become. At Earthworks, Leigh contributes to ecological survey work, informs the siting and selection of design elements, and brings a practitioner’s understanding of water systems, soil health, and biodiversity to the studio’s projects.