Nikole Bouchard

Nikole's interdisciplinary research and design work straddles the space between art, architecture, and landscape to discover ideas that stimulate ecologically sensitive and culturally relevant design interventions. Nikole engages in projects of all scales and media that explore contextually driven methods of design where experiments embody a unique sense of fantastical pragmatism. They are playful yet intentional, well-informed, and environmentally sensitive.

Nikole is an Associate Professor in the School of Architecture and Urban Planning (SARUP) at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) and a Critic in the School of Architecture at Yale University. She has also taught at Cornell University, Syracuse University, the University of Waterloo, and the University of Toronto. In 2021, Nikole was 1 of 2 architecture faculty from across the country selected to receive a 2021 Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) Creative Achievement Award. In 2019, Nikole was 1 of 3 architecture faculty awarded an ACSA New Faculty Teaching award.

Professionally, Nikole has worked at Steven Holl Architects and Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill LLC in New York City. While teaching in Toronto, Nikole was a Lead Designer at Lateral Office. During this time, one of her primary projects, The Arctic Food Network in Iqaluit, Canada, was awarded a Holcim Foundation 2011 Gold North America Prize of $100,000.

Nikole has been a Fellow at MacDowell in Peterborough, NH, and an Artist-in-Residence at Baer Art Center in Hofsós, Iceland. Her residency work regarding the reciprocal relationships between people and place was an extension of her ongoing research that began when she was awarded the $30,000 Steedman Travel Fellowship Prize from Washington University in St. Louis. As the Steedman Fellow, she traveled to 14 countries and 87 cities around the world to investigate the way various cultures live harmoniously with the landscapes that surround them. Nikole focused on native material research, growth and decay, temporal structures, passive design strategies, affordable construction techniques, and settlement patterns.

Nikole edited and contributed to the book WASTE MATTERS: Adaptive Reuse for Productive Landscapes, which Routledge published in January 2021.