Search
Creative Minds

Creative Mind: Edwina von Gal

The Perfect Earth Project founder is lending her environmental expertise to Windsor in Vero Beach

By Jill Sieracki
Modern building surrounded by a colorful garden with various flowers and trees under a cloudy sky.
Edwina von Gal conceives beautiful landscapes including the OMA-designed headquarters of tech company Tencent in Beijing. Photo: COURTESY OF TENCENT

Wild and billowing, with native plants tended in chemical-free environments, the gardens of Edwina von Gal look as nature intended. It’s a deeply held tenet that informs Perfect Earth Project, the nonprofit she founded in East Hampton, New York, in 2013 to inspire and educate about ecological land care. “The core concept is creating conditions conducive to life,” she says. “Everything we know about beauty, we got from nature.” Currently, von Gal is lending her expertise to Windsor, in Vero Beach, where she found a kindred spirit in Alannah Weston, whose late parents envisioned the planned Florida community with an eye toward sustainability. This final, 47-acre phase, dubbed the North Village, neighbors two wildlife refuges and harmoniously marries Anglo-Caribbean architecture, outdoor art, and free-flowing horticulture with the area’s robust flora and fauna.

Smiling person with short hair and a white collared shirt, resting chin on hand against a gray background.
Edwina von Gal. Photo: INEZ & VINOODH
Small modern wooden cabin surrounded by lush greenery and trees with a pathway over a pond in a serene forest setting.
The Bridgehampton, New York, home of Leonard and Louise Riggio. Photo: Nikolas Koenig

Everything we know about beauty, we got from nature”

Edwina von Gal

Lush garden scene with a pond reflecting trees, pink flowering tree in the background, surrounded by greenery under a clear sky.
The pond at Marshouse. Photo: Courtesy of Perfect Earth Project

Edenic setting: “The garden I did for Leonard and Louise Riggio is highly designed, but I think so fondly about it,” says von Gal, who orchestrated a stunning plot around a Japanese pavilion and covetable works by Donald Judd, Louise Bourgeois, and Isamu Noguchi at the Bridgehampton, New York, home of the late Barnes & Noble founder and venerable art collector.

Stone cottage with large window surrounded by lush garden plants, trees, and a vibrant autumn landscape in the background.
A garden in Martha’s Vineyard designed with Abby Clough Lawless. Photo: Courtesy of Perfect Earth Project

Art meets earth: Von Gal frequently collaborates with artist Maya Lin, whose works, such as the rolling Wavefield installation at Storm King Art Center in New York’s Hudson Valley, manipulate land and plants to sculptural effect. Currently the duo is working on a new performance arts studio at Bard College in Dutchess County, New York.

A version of this article first appeared in print in our 2026 Spring Issue in the section “Creative Minds.” Subscribe to the magazine.