It is with great sadness that we share with you that Professor Nigel Dunnett, Professor of Planting Design and Vegetation Technology in the School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, passed away peacefully on 26 April 2026.
Professor Dunnett had a distinguished 30-year career at the University, with visible impact across Sheffield, nationally and internationally.
He implemented innovative, immersive and sustainable planting schemes both across the UK and abroad, in sites including the Barbican, Stratford’s Olympic Park, Italy’s Bergamo Square, the streets of Sheffield, the historic Tower of London moat and the Diamond garden at Buckingham Palace.
Nigel leaves behind a body of work that altered how many designers, institutions, and gardeners think about planting in public space, and his passing has drawn tributes from across the gardening and design world, including on BBC News.
Nigel was also a colleague and friend of many people across the University, making important contributions to the former Department of Landscape and then, from 2024, the new School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture. In particular, Nigel's planting teaching was engaging and positively impacted the many students he taught over his 30 years at the University, as well as influencing his fellow teaching colleagues.
Nigel’s enthusiastic teaching and interactions with students were very important to him and this is one way he has influenced thinking and practice about planting design in many different contexts and countries.
"His aim to support biodiversity, colour and connecting people with nature in cities is also successfully expressed in the many projects informed by his research. Some of us knew Nigel as a colleague for many years and each of us have individual memories of working with him, which will forever remind us of him.”
Professor Helen Woolley
Head of the School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture
Professor Nigel Dunnett was a pioneer in the landscape discipline. No challenge was too great. Through his research and advocacy he enhanced the development of vegetated green roofs to support biodiversity and roof water management. He transformed unloved, sterile neighbourhoods with bright, colourful annual flower meadows, bringing a sense of place and pride to the local community.
"He inspired new urban design that was not only functional but beautiful too – the Grey to Green Sheffield’s iconic ‘flood intervention tool’ perhaps being the most notable. His ability to challenge convention, utilise innovative design and simply, his capacity to make the impossible possible will be sorely missed by colleagues and practitioners alike.”
Professor Ross Cameron
Professor of Environmental Horticulture
Professor Dunnett’s acclaimed projects include Grey to Green in Sheffield, an award-winning scheme bringing colour and sustainability to inner-city Sheffield.
In 2023, Professor Dunnett was awarded the title, Royal Designer for Industry, the highest accolade for designers in the UK for those who have achieved sustained design excellence, work of aesthetic value and significant benefit to society. He was also given a lifetime Fellowship of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA).
In June 2022, Nigel brought wild nature, colour and dynamic planting into the public realm with his planting scheme for the Superbloom project. Over 20 million seeds were sown in the moat surrounding the Tower of London to celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. He also installed a garden to commemorate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee – the Diamond Garden, Buckingham Palace. The garden was designed as a stretched diamond grid and Nigel attended the opening alongside the Queen.
Nigel played a key role in the planting design for the London 2012 Olympic Games, especially at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, where he served as co-principal planting design consultant from 2008 onwards. The use of perennial meadows and long-season planting there drew international attention and became a reference point for environmentally conscious landscape architecture.
Nigel was one of our most inspirational colleagues and we had the pleasure and privilege to work with him on a number of projects in the city, all of which have had a long lasting impact on the reputation of our built environment.
"His pioneering work on Grey to Green and the pop-up park at Love Square has played an important role in the regeneration of West Bar, and of course his love and dedication to student engagement especially during Festival of the Mind. He also was instrumental in the design planting of the public artwork on campus, especially the area around Jessop West, which integrated his vision of the city to the wider campus.
"One of the highlights of working with him was the visit of the international guru of guerilla gardening Ron Finley whose visit in 2014 created a huge benefit for understanding how the University of Sheffield’s research and work is seen on a global scale. We will miss him, but his legacy grows all around us, especially in the city and the university he called home."
Professor Vanessa Toulmin
Director of City Culture and Public Engagement
Nigel was also an alumnus of the University of Sheffield, gaining a PhD in Animal and Plant Sciences in July 1996.
Professor Nigel Dunnett will be warmly remembered by everyone who knew him. His far-reaching and impactful contributions to the University and the wider world will not be forgotten. Our thoughts are with his family at this difficult time.