Our vision at hola is to design landscapes on all scales – from residential environment design to large public spaces – that impress with their exceptional design quality and spatial aesthetics.

In doing so, sustainable design is always our goal. Looking to the future, the design of today is the raw material of tomorrow. In our view, recognizing existing qualities and strengths is essential for this, and so we always prioritize the preservation of existing buildings and the reuse of existing materials in our design tasks.

This requires a sensitive approach to the context in order to create something new from what is already there, creating long-term added value for people, animals and nature.

In the planning process, we rely on high-quality and sustainable materials in order to realize projects that are both functional and ecologically valuable.

However, sustainability is for us also an aesthetic and social aspect. In order to achieve a high level of social acceptance, we work closely and in partnership with all stakeholders – from employees and clients to planning participants and construction companies. Together, we create (urban) landscapes that meet and anticipate the needs and expectations of the community.

Our team and our work are a commitment to an open, multi-ethnic and diverse society.

Gerd Holzwarth

Owner and managing director

Between art and landscape architecture: after studying art and exhibiting between Milan and Copenhagen, the space in museums and galleries soon became too confining for him and he pushed for larger open spaces.

Gerd sees his role as managing director as supporting people in what they do well, inspiring them, but also offering criticism – with empathy and enthusiasm. In his private life, he is also in search of wider contexts through art, philosophy, politics and music. He is far too rarely in the city he loves so much.

Andreas Lüderitz

Projectmanager

Born and raised near Berlin – always rooted in and especially with the Berlin-Brandenburg region. Andreas studied at the Technical University of Berlin, where he later worked as a student assistant in teaching and research in the field of landscaping and building construction. He completed internships at the landscape architecture firm Planorama with a focus on implementation planning and practiced in the field of perennial use at the Berlin Botanical Garden.

Andreas loves structure and order – although he would not necessarily count multitasking among his strengths. It is particularly important to him that his profession contributes to the promotion of social interaction in public spaces. In his private life, he is a DJ and producer in the world of electronic music.

Mohammed Essam

Competition team

Mohammed is responsible for design and visualization in the competition team – always with the utmost precision and a special interest in projects with challenging environmental situations.

He finds balance in his hobbies, horse riding and soccer. Growing up in Cairo, Mo studied urban planning at the BTU Cottbus and gained broad professional experience not only through his travels, but also through his diverse professional experience in different countries and cultures.

Mathias Maurerlech‍ner

Head of Competition and Design

Mathias has a strong connection between urban design and landscape architecture. Having started out on a small scale (garden and landscape design in Vienna), he always sought out the larger scales and systemic contexts during his studies (B.Sc. Landscape Architecture and M.Sc. Urban Design at TU Berlin).

In addition to hola, he also works as an urban designer at Yellow Z. Before that he was a research assistant at the TU Berlin at the Department of Landscape Architecture and Open Space Planning. Mathias is co-founder of Studio Maurermeier. He is always on the lookout for holistic concepts that can be translated into good narratives and also enjoys discussing major social and fundamental issues.

Winnie Lo

Project team

Winnie’s drive for landscape architecture is not just to create a beautiful open space with hardware for users, but to improve connections between people and strengthen community. From the inside out, you could say, is how she transitioned from interior design to landscape architecture.

Before hola, she worked at DPWT Design (Hong Kong), Studio Dreiseitl (Überlingen, DE), Frank Kiessling Landschaftsarchitekten (Berlin) and Man Made Land (Berlin). When Winnie brings in a cake, she has so many baking orders afterwards that we’re lucky she’s still working for us at all.

Silvia Garau

Competition team

Silvia Garau began her academic career as an architecture student. It took her four years and some life experience to realize that her path was different. She then changed course and specialized in sustainable architecture and landscape design at the Politecnico di Milano.

After graduating, she moved to the city she calls her Rebound City: Berlin, to start an internship in a landscape architecture firm here. She sees the role of landscape architecture as creating meeting spaces.

Sabine Winnemuth

Assistant to the management

Having grown up near Hannover, she lived in Spain and South America from an early age. She has been a Berliner with heart and soul since 2008. After studying fine arts in Hanover, Braunschweig and Barcelona, she worked at EXPO 2000 in the field of culture and events in office and administrative activities and then worked in various agencies and planning offices.

In between, she has tried her hand in numerous areas – be it as a waitress, restaurant manager, carpenter, translator, language teacher, editor or gallery owner. At hola, she manages administration, acquisition and social media. Photography, art, traveling and her two grandchildren are her great passions.

Wenye Gong

Project leader

Wenye is not only responsible for various projects at hola and the IT contact person, but also always has an overview of everything else going on in the office. She always knows exactly what’s coming up and can even find things she thought were lost.

Before she found her way into landscape architecture, she tried her hand in various fields: starting with geography, studying electrical engineering, venturing into the world of film criticism at the Berlinale and organizing events on German-Chinese building culture. Wenye has been a part of hola almost from the beginning and sees her job as designing for the benefit of people, society and nature.

Jessica Thumann

Project leader

In her first life she was a social pedagogue, now she is raising trees – at least according to her husband. After studying landscape architecture at Beuth University, Jessica joined hola in 2020. Here, she enjoys working on technical solutions and sometimes gets lost in the details. At every opportunity, she takes the time to pass on her knowledge to others – the social pedagogue in her is still active.

What excites her about landscape architecture is creating something that continues to evolve even after the construction project has been completed. After several years in Potsdam and Berlin, she is now back in her rural home, where knitting, handicrafts, her vegetable garden and eating cake are among her favorite pastimes.

Leonid Voronin

Project team

Leonid initially followed in the footsteps of his family of architects before studying urban planning at RWTH Aachen University and discovering landscape architecture for himself. The variety of tasks in landscape architecture appealed to him.

He is particularly interested in creating concepts and designs. Whether he needs to quickly sketch out new ideas or better understand an issue, he always starts with a hand-drawn sketch. In his private life, Leonid swaps his sketch pencil for a paintbrush to capture impressions outdoors in nature.

Larissa Bulheller

Project team

After various internships and student work, Larissa joined hola in 2024. She ended up in Berlin in a roundabout way – although she never actually wanted to live in Berlin. Her work is otherwise characterized by more determination. For her, open space should also be thought of as a social space and always considered in the context of its surroundings.

Larissa prefers to work with technical drawings in order to understand the process from design to implementation. Due to her urge to understand everything, you have to be careful not to be riddled with her questions.

Christoph Deus

Construction management

Even as a landscape gardener, Chris was most fascinated by the implementation of projects – turning creative ideas into solid, realizable projects. After training as a landscape gardener, he worked as a gardener and tree inspector all over Germany and began studying landscape architecture in search of new perspectives.

His tasks at hola include: Project processing, project management and construction supervision – as well as occasionally the all-important coordination of who joins them for lunch.

Former employees:

Jonathan Preuss I Tobias Birkefeld I Junqian Zhang I Zhanhui Ren I Kai Scherz I Marta Pancalli I Patrick Allan I Anne Mann I Sophia Krause I Jenny Kernchen I Lisa Sommerfeld I Mansura Perveen I Catinca Dobrescu I Justus Gärtner I Nell Alexandra Osojca I Jan van den Berge I Alicja Smolińska I Johanna Klein I Charlotte Soppa I Johanna Friebe I Johannes Mebes I Philipp Rösner I Katharina Wittchen I Dominikus Littel I Marie Henze I Pia Abraham I Jihye Joo I Maike Nolte I Antonina Varisella I Olga Medvedeva I Angelika Strauß I Antoine Fourrier