Web site content, "Blue Poche Project," "Silver Artichoke Workshop" copyright: Nelson Scott Smith | Artichoke Design Company
Silver Artichoke Workshop grows out of my long-standing interests in illustrating concepts, ideas, and insights about environmental matters. Living in northern California inspired me to delineate the often unrecognized patterns and spatial relationships in the landscape and to portray the landscape in all its patterns, layers, and imaginable colors. The Land Lines Diptych portrays a twelve-mile stretch of the California coastline. The Gallery is representations of places in the northern California coastal
landscape.
Blue Poche Project is artworks conceived to provoke awareness, curiosity, and further study about global warming and its effects. It is commentary for advancing planning and design ideas and solutions that promote new models for climate action and environmental and social justice.
Climate Action Planning and Design for Colleges and Universities
Global Warming and Consequential Design
Leadership for Climate Action Design
Resources Planning for Climate Action
landscape.
Blue Poche Project is artworks conceived to provoke awareness, curiosity, and further study about global warming and its effects. It is commentary for advancing planning and design ideas and solutions that promote new models for climate action and environmental and social justice.
Design Excellence and Climate Action
Only with our leadership and perseverance will climate action design take its place in the daily processes and lexicon of design thinking and critical analysis, resting among the measures considered for design excellence ... more
Climate Action Planning and Design for Colleges and Universities
Colleges and universities are positioned as leading protagonists for consequential climate action initiatives ... more
Global Warming and Consequential Design
The social and environmental consequences of global warming become more apparent, and they are multiplying. These consequences implore the professions to adopt a worldview of social and environmental justice ... more
Leadership for Climate Action Design
Design professionals and institutional leadership take significant responsibility for an institution’s physical resources: land, infrastructure, and buildings ... more
Resources Planning for Climate Action
Institutional goals for energy and greenhouse gases reductions are well documented in sustainability, climate action, and strategic energy plans. Unfortunately, these plans lack a framework of quantifiable actions needed to fulfill the aspirations ... more
RECREATION CENTER
University of California, Santa Barbara
Photo: Misho Bruk
University of California, Santa Barbara
Photo: Misho Bruk
MASTER PLAN
Pomona College
Pomona College
VITRUVIAN SEAS
Blue Poche Project
Blue Poche Project
STUDENT RESOURCES BUILDING
University of California, Santa Barbara
Photo: Tim Hursley
University of California, Santa Barbara
Photo: Tim Hursley
Artichoke Design Company is a platform for design thinking. Listening, attention, and human and environmental sensibilities shape my work and design approach. My practice emphasizes creative vision that supports community building, identity, and place.
Projects often involve working with complex environmental settings and multiple constituencies. Decisions favor climate action, the finite nature of resources, and social justice. Clarity and function inform the definition of beauty.
Travel, living in the heart of great cities and the influence of climate, culture, and context shaped my beliefs about architecture and urban design. The cities and dwellings of northern Africa and Mediterranean Europe gave insights into building and urban form shaped by regional forces and resources. These beliefs and experiences are the foundation of my professional career.
For twenty-five years, I was a partner with Sasaki Associates. Before joining Sasaki, I worked with other nationally known architects and with an international firm in Rome.
National and international awards, publications, and speaking engagements attest to leadership, design excellence, and memorable and sustainable projects.
Clients include public and private organizations, colleges and universities, and individuals. My work is throughout the United States. Internationally, projects have taken me to Japan, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Korea, Mexico, and Egypt.