“ I love working in teamwork where the boundaries between architecture and landscape are blurred.”
used to accompany Cudnohufsky to the course as an assistant until Cudnohufsky asked Schnell to step in as lead teacher, with Cudnohufsky now making guest instructor appearances.( The next class begins on March 26; more information at berkshirebotanical. org.) The BBG course incorporates a shortened version of the design process they implement at the firm’ s office for most of their projects, Schnell says.
“ Most of it starts with asking the students at an early stage to identify their own values and whether they have design prejudices so that they know that going into any situation,” Schnell says.
The other piece of design that Schnell and Cudnohufsky teach students is to identify their feelings when seeing a particular site. At the firm, Cudnohufsky encourages his associates to note what they see and feel when pulling up to a site for the first time, encouraging themselves and their students to tune in to those sensory experiences.
“ Really good architecture and garden design and landscape design spaces are not only visually appealing but also create some sort of an emotional response,” Schnell says. Greater selfknowledge is also one of the unspoken goals of the Conway School curriculum, he says, and one that helps students when they’ re working on their own design projects.
Jenna O’ Brien, owner of Viridissima Horticulture & Design, took Cudnohufsky’ s course at BBG years ago and has since worked alongside him on projects in the Berkshires. She now teaches a horticulture certificate level one program at BBG, where she’ s also a trustee. She’ s always appreciated Cudnohufsky’ s approach to design by honoring the landscape at large, as well as his out-of-the box approach to teaching. That includes driving students up north through New England to stop and look at gardens and landscapes
along the way and talk about why they work or what they evoke.
Cudnohufsky himself seems to embody the philosophy that one can always be a learner. Now an accomplished watercolor painter, he started painting on a trip to Maine with a friend 35 years ago, when he was about 50. In the years since, he has taught workshops in watercolor technique up until the pandemic— and hopes to begin teaching again. He still displays his work annually as part of the Ashfield Fall Festival.
Several of his watercolors can also be found in the book he co-authored with Mollie Babize, titled Cultivating the Designer’ s Mind: Principles and Process for Coherent Landscape Design.
Sometimes, Cudnohufsky’ s role extends beyond just the plantings around a space. For some projects, he’ s teamed up with architects like the Great Barrington-based firm Clark Green + Bek, to influence the overall design of the building as it goes through construction. Since their first collaboration on a client’ s“ dream home” in Lenox, Cudnohufsky’ s team has done more than 200 projects partnering with the architectural firm.
“ I love working in teamwork where the boundaries between architecture and landscape are blurred and where we’ re not afraid to make suggestions about the building,” he says, citing the Lenox project in which his team“ changed the whole footprint of the house and how we related it to the land.”
Overall, Cudnohufsky says he appreciates the varied aspects of being a landscape architect and artist.
“ As a profession, you deal with not only aesthetics, but plants and nature and politics and finances and technical and artistic,” he says.“ All those languages that go with those subjects get teased into the brain and become fodder. It’ s a very expansive profession that also allows for inclusive community building and self-discovery.” n
Spring 2026 BERKSHIRE MAGAZINE // 49