Nolan Bade

Speaker: Nolan Bade, Landscape Architect/Adjunct Professor

Nolan Bade: There's a lot of reasons why I've decided to teach. One large reason, is that I see the need for some of the ideas that we encompass at BORDER in the professional field and you know, that's what originally drew me to working with our crew and the idea that you're able to inspire other people and start the dialogue with students while they're impressionable and you're able to craft them and manipulate them. No, just kidding into a way that starts this dialogue that goes further than us talking about landscape architecture as a simple trade. I think that's really

Nolan Bade: I think that it also helps to switch things up and in a way that me and as an individual, I like to constantly try and do different things and one of my professional goals was to not be too complacent and always try to see what new ideas are out there in the world and teaching is a way to stay engaged with the pedagogy that's surrounding landscape architecture as a field and to have discussions with other faculty and staff surrounding kind of the needs of the profession

Nolan Bade: It definitely has in a positive way, I think teaching, especially a fundamental studio this last semester. It was a great experience to be able to kind of take a step back from kind of what we do in a second nature kind of way as designers. and think about the kind of building blocks of how you create a design and your approach to the design and kind of the, you know, taking a step back at you know, a pretty design, but be able to dissect it in a way where you can ultimately describe what makes something successful, what strategies can be utilized to create something beautiful.

Nolan Bade: I think that as landscape architects, you know, in some ways, I don't think that landscape architect is, you know, the nomenclature that we actually need for the future. I think that our skill set is so unique and I try to instill that in students that I'm teaching or even just in conversation with other professionals. And I think in particularly this idea of really pushing for more nature in urban environments is one of the most important challenges that we have in our society and in the world for the future, especially creation of urban habitat. And the status quo obviously is not working and that's important to tell people and to identify and frame when you're in a design discussion with whoever it is clients, architects, the general public or your students and something's gotta give right? So as landscape architects, it's our job, I believe to really be the advocate for the natural systems that can't advocate for themselves

Nolan Bade: I think it's important to call out the ineffective and inhospitable environments that have been created over the past 100 years. You know, due to a lot of different reasons, but if we're going to reinvest in creating special spaces for wildlife, we need to be able to call out what hasn't worked in the past and why we really need to as landscape, why we're in charge or should be in charge of pushing the boundaries and being weird with stuff. You know, think about spaces that are in the urban environment that can really make, you know an 'Instagramable' moment or even in circulation or public art. To think about the genius loci of and not lose track of that when you're designing. Otherwise we're gonna end up with urban environments 20 years or 10 years from now that are very sterile and don't create active space for creativity.