Cole Thornton

Cole joined Nelson Byrd Woltz in 2025 following a summer internship. He holds a Master of Landscape Architecture from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and a Bachelor of Arts in Art History from Davidson College. 

At UTK, Cole served as the president of the student ASLA and as a member of the Dean’s advisory board, and his work earned Honors and Merit certificates from Tennessee ASLA. His graduate thesis studied the tensions among preservation, commodity, authenticity, and spirituality embedded in contemporary landscapes of religious pilgrimage with a focus on the Camino de Santiago in Spain. He continues to be fascinated with the role that landscape architecture plays in the evolution of heritage landscapes through present and future, cultural and climatic dynamism. 

Prior to joining NBW, Cole worked as an intern for Agency Landscape + Planning, Mathews Nielsen Landscape Architects, Field Operations, the Metro Nashville Planning Department, and as a residential designer in Nashville. His early work at NBW includes the Angel Oak Preserve in Charleston and residential estates in Virginia and New York.