Cindy Zerger, PLA, ASLA, is a landscape architect and public space designer whose work spans streets, trails, plazas, pocket parks, and the many interfaces where mobility and site design meet. She serves as Urban Design Practice Leader at Toole Design, where she leads a team of more than 40 urban designers, landscape architects, and environmental graphic designers. Her work bridges visioning, planning, and built public space design, from bold conceptual ideas to implemented projects that center human experience, ecological function, and long-term resilience.
Much of Cindy’s perspective is shaped by the belief that the paths we travel are as influential to daily life as the destinations themselves. Her interest in these “in-between” spaces, our streets, trails, and public rights-of-way, led her to coin the term “path as place” as a deliberate challenge to the transportation field’s long-standing focus on efficiency above all else. By reframing how we talk about these spaces, she seeks to shift the design conversation toward the qualities that truly shape public life: human experience, ecological function, and the richness of place. This perspective supports a holistic approach that values more than mobility alone and elevates the full potential of our everyday public spaces.
Cindy collaborates with communities, agencies, and interdisciplinary teams to advance design frameworks and implementation strategies that elevate livability and climate resilience. She has lectured and conducted trainings nationwide on innovative street design, equity in the public realm, and women in leadership. Cindy has served as adjunct faculty at the University of Minnesota and UC Davis and has served as a frequent university design critic at her alma mater. She holds master’s degrees in both Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning from the University of Minnesota. She is a recipient of the ASLA MN H.W.S. Cleveland Award.