Nelson Scott Smith

Architect and Planner

Nelson Scott Smith is an architect and planner. He has worked with more than fifty public and private colleges and universities across the United States and in Asia. Scott is the Design Architect for the UCSB Recreation Center, one of the first buildings to be selected for the UCSB LEED-Platinum EBOM program, and the Student Resource Building, which recently achieved ZNE. Scott’s practice emphasizes the integration of planning and design, leadership for interdisciplinary teams of professionals and complex client groups, and long-term institutional sustainability. Through his work and his Blue Poche Project, Scott advocates climate action policies and planning consequential to climate change, and environmental and social justice. He advocates a lexicon for discussion and criticism integrating a social and environmental worldview with new measures for design excellence and new definitions of beauty. His work is recognized through awards, public presentations, and national and international publications. He is a Rotch Traveling Scholar, a Loeb Fellow for Environmental Studies at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and a Fellow to the Salzburg Seminars. Scott founded Artichoke Design Company in 2009. He lives and works in San Francisco and The Sea Ranch, California.