Capturing Essence: Virginia Burt Designs’ New Book Marks 30 Years of Landscape Practice

The landscape architecture firm Virginia Burt Designs, known for work across the United States and Canada, is marking its 30th anniversary with a new book. Capturing Essence, published by ORO Editions in 2026, gathers 17 projects that the firm says represent its ethos: landscapes that serve people and place while responding to physical, mental, emotional and spiritual experience.

ArchDaily, which reported the book’s release on August 14, 2026, describes the firm as award-winning and notes that its portfolio includes private gardens, therapeutic gardens for hospitals, estate master plans and native landscape restoration. The book is presented not as a retrospective catalog but as a tactile object meant to be experienced in a similar way to the firm’s landscapes.

What the book covers

The 17 selected projects span the full range of the firm’s work. According to the announcement, the collection is meant to show the expansive nature of Virginia Burt Designs’ practice, from transformation and environmental restoration to healing gardens and residential landscapes.

The book is published on the occasion of the firm’s thirtieth anniversary, giving the project list an explicit chronological frame. Readers familiar with the firm’s work will recognize the themes: careful material choices, attention to form, and a holistic approach to how people move through outdoor space.

Two projects anchor the range

The announcement highlights two projects that show the breadth of the book. Acadia Point in Nova Scotia is described as a former whaling station transformed into a place of environmental renewal and restoration. It represents the firm’s work on damaged or historically significant sites where landscape recovery is a central goal.

The second highlighted project is Schneider Healing Garden in Cleveland. It was expressly designed to support the mission of the Seidman Cancer Center, making it an example of the firm’s therapeutic garden work. Together, the two projects illustrate a practical distinction: one is about restoring a landscape’s ecological past, the other about shaping a landscape to support patients and caregivers in the present.

Why the book appears now

The timing is tied to the firm’s anniversary, but the book is also a response to what the practice has become. Virginia Burt Designs has worked in both the United States and Canada, which means the project list spans different climates, regulations and land-use contexts. A 30-year retrospective is therefore also a record of how landscape architecture for healthcare and restoration has evolved over three decades.

The source material describes the book as “invitingly tactile and sensuous,” made with attention to materials, form and spirit. That description aligns with the firm’s design language, but it also serves as a reminder that the book itself is a designed object, not just a collection of photographs.

Who should pay attention

This book is likely to be useful to several distinct readers. Landscape architects and students can study how the firm translates a holistic design philosophy into built projects across very different settings. Healthcare design teams may look to Schneider Healing Garden as a reference for therapeutic outdoor space. Local readers in Nova Scotia and Cleveland may want to see how these projects are documented and presented to a wider audience.

Because the announcement is based on the firm’s own framing, however, the book should be treated as a curated story of the work, not as an independent assessment of it. It is reasonable to use the book as a starting point for deeper research into any individual project.

What remains unclear

The ArchDaily announcement does not include a page count, retail price, pre-order details or a precise release date beyond 2026. It also does not say whether every featured project is open to the public; some residential and estate projects may be private.

Readers who want to verify the book’s claims should check the ORO Editions page for Capturing Essence and compare the featured list with the firm’s own project portfolio. No independent review of the book has been cited in the announcement, so descriptive statements about the volume itself come from the publisher and the firm.

Source: ArchDaily, “Capturing Essence Virginia Burt Designs,” published August 14, 2026, https://www.archdaily.com/1183328/capturing-essence-virginia-burt-designs