NATHAN RICHARDSON FACULTY FOCUS:

Curiosity is one of the most important driving forces in education and in life. Even though Nathan is assigned to teach many of the same courses each year, he is perennially motivated to explore new edges and opportunities. It’s an important reason that he and Moh’d Bilbeisi wrote Creative Journeys: Timeless Strategies for Traveling with Purpose. Nathan firmly believes that travel study, for example, is a critical way in which we build confidence and insight through uncertain experiences. These moments allow us as humans to learn to be more flexible, adaptable, and curious enough to find new ways of exploring the world around us. Plus, these experiences can be fun! For professors, it’s important to continue to explore ways to work creatively with those inside and outside our discipline. In Urban Studio, the class regularly engages ongoing “real” projects and partners with architects, governmental agencies, and other educators in a major urban US city center. Most recently, Nathan and Seung Ra worked with the New York City Planning Department and the Governor’s Island Trust in New York. This effort added value to the experience of our students, allowing them to work with and present their projects to participating clients and professionals. To address the complexities of twenty-first century practice, it is increasingly important to build collaborative relationships within and beyond the School of Architecture.

As an educator that seeks to collaborate and remain curious, Nathan takes an interest in a student’s education from beginning to end. He regularly teaches the first and last studios in our curriculum, allowing him to form a deep appreciation for the importance of beginning strong and finishing even stronger. Nathan values fundamental design education as much as capstone design education. He finds it rewarding to sketch, model, and demonstrate design to first year students; it is also rewarding to spur, question, and motivate students in fifth year studio. Because architectural education can take so many forms in teaching and research, Nathan demonstrates that we must leave room for advanced questions in beginning studio and fundamental concerns in advanced studio. Nothing is ever too simple to revisit nor is anything too complex or challenging to try. Curiosity is key, from the beginning to beyond the degree.