featuring Shannon Nichol, FASLA, founding principal of GGN, in discussion about her firm’s distinct approach to design and collaboration, including the newly launched Meadowshop project in the Pacific Northwest. Meadowshop is ideal for homeowners who are looking to live in a thoughtfully designed native garden, but don't know how or where to start. There are many confusing “pollinator” plant products and notions that are not native to this bioregion and therefore do not measurably assist in producing native insects and supporting native birds, both of which are in steep decline. GGN’s Meadowshop initiative combines ecological knowledge with design expertise.

GGN’s Meadowshop team will help you figure out how you want to live outdoors, design your garden spaces, and guide you through the construction process. We will pair you with a qualified and trusted landscape contractor to install your garden. After install, we will continue overseeing your garden’s progress, working with a horticultural team to manage your garden for a minimum of two years post installation.

About the Presenter

Shannon Nichol is co-founder of GGN. Shannon stewards GGN’s distinct approach to design and collaboration, bringing curiosity, humility, humor, and deep creativity to all of our projects and our studio.

Shannon’s designs – including San Francisco’s India Basin Waterfront Parks, the Lurie Garden in Chicago, and the Gates Foundation Campus – are widely recognized as distinct landforms and welcoming places embedded in local history, culture, and native ecologies. Shannon’s recent and current projects include the Burke Museum of Natural History & Culture, Oxbow Farm & Conservation Center, and the Seattle Residence: Native Gardens.

Shannon is a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects and an honorary member of the American Institute of Architects (Seattle). She and her partners received the Smithsonian’s 2011 Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award for Landscape Architecture, and GGN received the 2017 ASLA National Landscape Architecture Firm Award. Shannon’s projects have been recognized with ASLA National Awards of Excellence, ASLA and AIA Honor Awards, Tucker Design Awards, Great Places Awards from the Environmental Design Research Association, and Pacific Horticulture’s inaugural Design Futurist Award.

Her most recent guest lectures have included The Weitzman School of Design at U Penn, Cornell University, Harvard Graduate School of Design, and the Washington Native Plant Society. Shannon delivered the Sasaki Day Keynote Lecture at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in 2017, and she and Jennifer Guthrie were the Glimcher Distinguished Visiting Professors at Ohio State’s Knowlton School in 2015.

Shannon has been engaged in a wide range of activities and Board positions around her longtime advocacy for considerate design, hand drawing, native plants, and walkable cities. While Shannon considers nearly everything to be relevant to design and landscape, her “other” interests include car-design history, hill running, illustrative art, and non-fiction books.

About the Series

Planting Forward: Conversations on New Naturalism features designers and creatives presenting work at the intersections of horticulture, ecology, design, and curation. Guests will be chosen from around the globe, spanning diverse geography, communities, and cultural identities. Each conversation will showcase working professionals and their methods and practices with the hopes of inspiring other professionals or gardeners to approach design and management differently.