Shannon Nichol
EducationUniversity of Washington
OccupationLandscape architect

Shannon Nichol is an American landscape architect and founding principal of Gustafson Guthrie Nichol (GGN), located in Seattle. Nichol has led many of GGN's landscape design projects, including the designs for Boston's North End Parks, Seattle's Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation campus, and San Francisco's India Basin Shoreline. In 2018, she was elected a member of the National Academy of Design in the category "Architecture."

Early life and education

Nichol was born in Arizona but grew up in the Cascade Range of Washington near Mount Baker.[1][2] Her father was a systems engineer; her mother an artist and a naturalist.[1] To earn money for college, Nichols worked a variety of jobs, including driving a combine harvester and washing barrels in a cannery.[1]

While studying forestry and pre-engineering at the University of Washington, Nichol was inspired by an evening class with landscape architect Richard Haag.[1] A departmental scholarship enabled her to spend some time at the University of Liverpool.[2] She earned a Bachelor of Landscape Architecture from University of Washington in 1997.[1]

Career

Nichol's college internship led her to a job with the Seattle firm of Anderson and Ray. In 1997, landscape architect Kathryn Gustafson (whose partnership Gustafson Porter was based in Europe) invited Nichol to produce graphics for a competition to design a terrace for the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. When Gustafson's entry won the competition, Nichol, still employed at Anderson & Ray, began collaborating with Gustafson.[3][4]

In 1999, after three years of collaborating, Nichol and Jennifer Guthrie (her colleague at Anderson & Ray) started a firm in Seattle, inviting Gustafson to join them in a Seattle-based partnership. Each of the three contributed $7000 to the project. The firm's name was initially "Gustafson Partners" (to benefit from Gustafson's name recognition) but was later changed to "Gustafson Guthrie Nichol" (GGN.) The agreement was that Guthrie and Nichol would run the Seattle partnership, while Gustafson continued her European practice and participated as a "visiting fireman."[3]

Nichol leads many of GGN's national projects. In 1999, together with Kathryn Gustafson, she created the winning proposal for Lurie Garden at Millennium Park in Chicago, Illinois.[5] Nichol and her partners focused on using native midwestern plant material that was a part of Chicago's historic identity. The decision to recreate the native Prairie that once dominated the Chicago area led to the inclusion of garden designer Piet Oudolf, in what was his first North American project.[6] The project won several awards, including a General Design Award of Excellence from the ASLA.[7][8]

Nichol served as design lead for GGN on Boston's North End Parks, two parcels of the Rose Kennedy Greenway adjacent to Boston's North End created between 2003 and 2007. GGN collaborated on the project with Boston design firm Crosby, Schlessinger, Smallridge.[9][10] The parks were created on land reclaimed from Boston's Big Dig, which Boston zoning required "should be programmed, designed, and detailed for the primary benefit of the adjacent North End community through the development of a series of spaces which invite both residents and visitors to use the park while clearly delineating a neighborhood presence and oversight of the park."[11] According to The Landscape Architect's Guide to Boston, the North End Parks provide the North End with "both a contemporary garden space and a gateway to the downtown areas of Government Center and Haymarket Square."[12] The North End Parks project earned the 2012 Tucker Design Award.[13]

Nichol also served as landscape design lead on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Campus project, completed in 2011, in collaboration with the architecture firm NBBJ.[14] The campus masterplan won a 2014 ASLA Award of Excellence in General Design as well as a 2014 Merit Award in General Design from the Washington ASLA.[15][16]

In 2016, the San Francisco Parks Alliance and Build Inc. sponsored a competition to design a public 7.5-acre park on the India Basin Shoreline.[17] A concept design by Nichol won the competition for GGN.[18] The proposal focused on a softened shoreline and connections to the existing neighborhood.[19] [20] As of 2019, San Francisco's India Basin Mixed-Use Project was still in planning stages.[21]

Nichol became active in AIA Seattle and other design and architecture organizations, based on her collaborations with architects on urban projects. In 2005, Nichol was named an honorary member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA).[22] In 2014, she was made a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects.[23] In 2018, she was elected a member of the National Academy of Design in the category "Architecture."[24]

Nichol held the Herb and DeeDee Glimcher Distinguished Visiting Professorship from 2014- 2015 at The Ohio State University.[25]

Projects

Publications

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Way, Thaïsa; Guthrie, Jennifer; Gustafson, Kathryn; Nichol, Shannon; Abela, Rodrigo (November 27, 2018). GGN: Landscapes 1999-2018. Timber Press. pp. 20–22. ISBN 978-1-60469-823-7.
  2. 1 2 3 Easton, Valerie (July 9, 2011). "Shannon Nichol puts her mark on Gates Foundation landscape". Seattle Times. Retrieved March 19, 2020. Shannon Nichol designs significant landscapes around the country, yet her work hearkens back to her childhood in Whatcom County near Mount Baker...No surprise, then, that her latest big project — the 12-acre Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation landscape across from Seattle Center — includes masses of native plants and 150 of those beloved big-leaf maples.
  3. 1 2 Margolies, Jane (March 3, 2018). "Drawn Together" (PDF). Landscape Architecture Magazine. Retrieved March 16, 2020. They click through slides of two of the projects they've done in their hometown, both of which we'll visit later: the campus for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, in the Uptown neighborhood (see "Share the Wealth," LAM, November 2014); and the Lower Rainier Vista at the University of Washington, in the University District. Nichol does much of the talking.
  4. ↑ Anderson, Charles (April 1, 1999). "Time travel on the terrace". Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce. Retrieved March 21, 2020. The invitational design competition was won by the design team of Kathryn Gustafson, a Paris and Seattle-based landscape artist and the Seattle-based landscape architecture firm Anderson & Ray. Charles Anderson is the principal landscape architect for the project, Chris Overdorf is project manager, and associate designers include Shannon Nichol, Mark Tilbe and Inge Kaufman.
  5. ↑ Way, Thaïsa (September 2014). "Chicago Fell in Love". Landscape Architecture Magazine. Retrieved March 20, 2020. Eighteen firms were invited to submit proposals in 1999 for what the competition brief described as a "forward-looking garden" that would be 'unique to the region and different from other Chicago venues.' These were winnowed to five in the final phase. The winning proposal for the "Shoulder Garden" by Kathryn Gustafson, ASLA, and Shannon Nichol, ASLA, of Gustafson Guthrie Nichol (GGN), with the Dutch master plantsman Piet Oudolf and the theater lighting designer Robert Israel, wowed the jury, who found it 'bold, intellectual, daring, cutting edge.'
  6. ↑ Nichol, Shannon (April 12, 2016). "Successful Design is Inspired by a Site's History and Conditions". Lurie Garden. Retrieved March 16, 2020.
  7. ↑ Case Study: The Lurie Garden at Millennium Park
  8. ↑ ASLA 2008 GENERAL DESIGN AWARD OF EXCELLENCE: The Lurie Garden, Millennium Park, Chicago, Illinois: Gustafson Guthrie Nichol Ltd.
  9. 1 2 Rabinowitz, Richard (2016). Curating America: Journeys Through Storyscapes of the American Past. UNC Press Books. p. 172. ISBN 9781469629513. Retrieved March 20, 2020. "as project architect Shannon Nichol reports... The commonality of a human experience, over all the varying physical details across time, was the clear insight that sparked our design concept: 'From Home to City.' {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  10. 1 2 Way, Thaïsa; Guthrie, Jennifer; Gustafson, Kathryn; Nichol, Shannon; Abela, Rodrigo (November 27, 2018). GGN: Landscapes 1999-2018. Timber Press. ISBN 978-1-60469-823-7. Retrieved March 20, 2020. However, GGN's designers, led by Shannon Nichol and deeply informed by the local knowledge of CSS's Skip Smallridge and Deneen Crosby as well as the historian Richard Rabinowitz, understood that this newly barren site had a long history of intricate local use.
  11. ↑ "About the Parcels: North End: Parcel 10 =". Boston.com. 2002. Retrieved March 21, 2020. With adjacent Parcel 8, master plan envisions this as both civic space and a neighborhood park. Only small structures with a footprint of 600-square-feet or less are allowed, and they can cover a maximum of 5 percent of the parcel. Article 49 of the city's zoning code says Parcels 8 and 10 "should be programmed, designed, and detailed for the primary benefit of the adjacent North End community through the development of a series of spaces which invite both residents and visitors to use the park while clearly delineating a neighborhood presence and oversight of the park."
  12. ↑ Shadley, JP (December 7, 2018). "The Landscape Architect's Guide to Boston: North End Parks". ASLA Landscape Architect Guides. Retrieved March 21, 2020. The North End's new "front porch" is both a contemporary garden space and a gateway to the downtown areas of Government Center and Haymarket Square.
  13. 1 2 "Gustafson Guthrie Nichol & Crosby Schlessinger Smallridge Receive 2012 Tucker Design Award". Bustler. May 12, 2012. Retrieved March 21, 2020. First presented in 1977, the Tucker Design Award is a nationally recognized architectural design award in both the building and landscape industries. The award program honors those whose work demonstrates excellence in concept, design, construction and use of natural stone.
  14. ↑ Cheek, Lawrence W. (March 17, 2012). "In New Office Designs, Room to Roam and to Think". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved March 18, 2020.
  15. ↑ ANDERSON, BETSY (2014). "Share the Wealth". Landscape Architecture. 104 (11): 116–129. ISSN 0023-8031. JSTOR 44796112. 'We imagined this site as a thick green sponge,' says Shannon Nichol, ASLA, a founding principal of the Seattle firm Gustafson Guthrie Nichol (GGN) and the lead landscape architect for the project.
  16. ↑ 2014 WASLA Professional Award Winners "Jury Comments: This handsomely executed campus design is a dramatic repair of a former parking lot to a predominantly green/blue refuge."
  17. ↑ "S.F. India Basin shoreline in running for major makeover". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved June 9, 2017.
  18. 1 2 King, Aaron (January 7, 2019). "GGN Re-envisions the Monograph". American Society of Landscape Architects. Retrieved March 20, 2020. If the Lurie Garden chapter shows us a young firm getting a feel for itself, India Basin Shoreline Park, the book's final featured project, shows a mature practice in full command of its faculties and with a firm grasp of landscape's agency. Shannon Nichol, one of GGN's three founders, led the concept design for the park in the Bayview-Hunters point neighborhood of San Francisco...Included in the chapter are Nichols' sketches showing the meadow's origin in the concept, and a series of plans show its refinement over time.
  19. ↑ Sayer, Jason (March 16, 2016). "Gustafson Guthrie Nichol to design San Francisco Shoreline Parks at the India Basin Waterfront". The Architects Newspaper. Retrieved March 20, 2020. GGN fought off competition from 19 other proposals including one from AECOM and a joint submission from SWA and Stanley Saitowitz/Natoma Architects..."We are honored to be entrusted to work with India Basin's neighbors and visitors, to enhance the things that people already treasure about this gem of a site," said founding principal of GGN, Shannon Nichol.
  20. ↑ Ulam, Alex (May 31, 2017). "SAN FRANCISCO PARKS: SEE YOU IN 10". Landscape Architecture Magazine. Retrieved March 20, 2020. Shannon Nichol, FASLA, a founding partner in the landscape architecture firm Gustafson Guthrie Nichol (GGN), is designing the 9.6-acre India Basin Shoreline Park—a major park along the Blue Greenway.
  21. ↑ San Francisco Planning: India Basin Mixed-Use Project
  22. ↑ Kapusta, Beth (2005). "FEARLESS IN SEATTLE: FOR THEIR "HILL-TOWN" CITY, SHANNON NICHOL AND JENNIFER GUTHRIE, TOGETHER WITH VETERAN LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT KATHRYN GUSTAFSON, HAVE CREATED A BOLD NEW VISION OF CIVIC SPACE". Azure. 21 (164): 78–81.
  23. ↑ "2014 Fellows Profiles | asla.org". www.asla.org. Retrieved March 18, 2020.
  24. ↑ "National Academy Inducts Largest Class in 25 Years, Fifth Largest Class in History". National Academy of Design. November 13, 2018. Retrieved March 19, 2020. Elected by current NAs in recognition of their exceptional contributions to American art and architecture, the Class of 2018 represents a commitment to preserving the cultural heritage of the United States and pushing creative boundaries.
  25. ↑ "Visiting Faculty | Knowlton School". knowlton.osu.edu. Retrieved March 18, 2020.
  26. ↑ Way, Thaïsa (November 27, 2018). GGN: Landscapes 1999-2018. Timber Press. ISBN 9781604698237. Retrieved March 19, 2020. The Lurie Garden 2000-2004... Once GGN was awarded the projects, Shannon and Kathryn led the design process..
  27. ↑ "Lower Rainier Vista & Pedestrian Land Bridge | 2019 ASLA Professional Awards". www.asla.org. Retrieved March 18, 2020.
  28. ↑ "Landscape Architecture". National Museum of African American History and Culture. September 14, 2016. Retrieved March 18, 2020.
  29. ↑ "Visions of a new SF park in once-industrial waterfront space". SFChronicle.com. February 27, 2016. Retrieved March 18, 2020. Design firm Gustafson Guthrie Nichol has been chosen to draft a plan for the once-industrial waterfront, which extends north from the former Hunters Point Naval Shipyard. The Seattle firm won a five-team competition in which each was asked to conjure up visions for 7.5 acres of parkland. The winning presentation included natural walkways, restored marsh, a historic town square and a meadow.
  30. ↑ "Burke Museum Press Kit" (PDF). Burke Museum. 2019. Retrieved March 19, 2020. Designed by Shannon Nichol of GGN (Gustafson Guthrie Nichol), the landscaping includes a multipurpose courtyard called the "Burke Yard"..,fossils from Washington state, and tiered steps perfect for outdoor seating overlooking a sweeping meadow of Camas plants and native grasses alongside the museum.
  31. ↑ Forkner, Lorene Edwards (November 2, 2019). "The New Burke Museum landscape cultivates relationships with native people, native plants and the cultural history of the land". Seattle Times. Retrieved March 19, 2020. 'The past is still living in this landscape,. says Shannon Nichol, founding principal at Gustafson Guthrie Nichol, the local landscape architecture firm responsible for connecting the museum's exhibits with the natural world
  32. ↑ "Burke's landscape will bloom into a new quad at the UW". Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce. October 10, 2019. Retrieved March 21, 2020. 'The new Burke presents the rare opportunity for people to see and experience a sampling of these garden-worthy, useful plants and of the millennia of ethnobotanical connections between people and these plants,' says Shannon Nichol, founding principal of GGN and landscape architect of the new Burke Museum.
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