Shannon Nichol


FASLA, PLA, LEED AP 
 Founding Principal

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 Shoreline Park, 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.

PROJECTS

India Basin Waterfront Park

The Burke Museum

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Campus

Lower Rainier Vista & Pedestrian Land Bridge

The Lurie Garden at Millennium Park

North End Parks

Rackspace Headquarters: Racker Square

Pike-Pine Renaissance Streetscape Design Vision

Chromer Building Parklet & Streatery

Seattle Streetcar: City Center Connector

Cloud Box Garden