Sonny Xu (b. 1990, Beijing, China) is a Chinese-Canadian architectural and landscape designer currently based in Cambridge, MA and working at Stoss Landscape Urbanism. He earned his BArch degree from Cornell University, where he was the recipient of two Cornell Council for the Arts grants, one exploring paper texture at the nanoscale and one honoring physicist Hans Bethe’s work in nuclear and astrophysics. He also won the Charles Goodwin Sands Memorial Silver Medal (first-place thesis award) for The Sublime and the Artifice and the Eidlitz Fellowship for Borderline Encounters. 

Xu also pursued graduate studies at Harvard Graduate School of Design, receiving a MArch degree and a Master of Landscape Architecture with Distinction. At the GSD, he worked as a studio instructor in the Design Discovery summer program, a teaching assistant for five design studios and a researcher at the Harvard Mellon Urban Initiative. Upon graduation, he received the KPF Paul Katz Fellowship 2018, the Peter Walker and Partners Fellowship for Landscape Architecture 2018 and the Penny White Travel Fund 2018. 

Xu is passionate about design teaching and discourse. Most recently, he served as a teaching fellow at University of Calgary. He has been invited by numerous universities for lectures and design reviews including: Boston Architectural College, Carnegie Mellon University, Cornell University, Harvard GSD, RISD, Syracuse University, University of British Columbia, University of Calgary and Washington State University. His work has been exhibited at museums including the Cooper Hewitt, the Smithsonian Museum for Design (with Stoss Landscape Urbanism), The National Academy Museum (with FXCollaborative), the 9th International Biennial of Landscape Architecture, the 2014 Cornell Council for the Arts (CCA) Biennial, The Bibliowicz Family Gallery at Cornell University, Druker Gallery at the Harvard GSD and Washington State University.

His design work and writing were published in Transient Spaces (by CCNY Spitzer School of Architecture), Pamphlet of Architecture #36: Buoyant Clarity (Princeton Architectural Press, by Meyer, Hemmendinger and Meyer), Exacting Fantasy (Tsinghua University Press), Mise-en-Scène: The Lives and Afterlives of Urban Landscapes (ORO Editions, by Chris Reed and Mike Belleme) and many others.