Nathan Edwards

Nathan has led a varied career, working within a small-scale design practice in Leicester to a multinational environmental consultancy based in Edinburgh and Dublin. Nathan’s projects have ranged in scale and complexity, from individual gardens and pocket parks to strategic masterplans and new carbon zero settlements. Nathan has worked with private landowners, community groups, local charities, schools and universities, corporate clients, and major organisations such as Chester Zoo and the National Trust.

Whilst in practice Nathan developed skills in site promotion and feasibility studies, masterplanning, spatial strategies, detailed landscape design, landscape and visual impact assessment, townscape assessment, landscape character assessment, landscape management, construction and implementation, invasive species remediation strategies, play and art strategies and he has acted as expert witness.

Until mid-2023, Nathan was the co-director of Urban Wilderness, an award-winning landscape, masterplanning and urban design practice based in Leeds. He stepped down to focus on teaching and environmental advocacy, taking up a part-time role as University Teacher in Landscape Architecture at the University of Sheffield, while also launching a sole enterprise (Chantrey Studio), focused on community-led design.

Alongside private practice, Nathan has contributed to the Landscape Institute’s Professional Review Groups since 2008, supporting accreditation at Sheffield Hallam and the University of Sheffield. Nathan has served on the Landscape Institute’s Advisory Council and currently chairs the Yorkshire and Humber Branch of the Landscape Institute. At a local level Nathan chairs the Sheffield Street Tree Partnership (SSTP), working to promote climate resilience, increase canopy cover, and improve planting equity across the city. Nathan also helped establish and chairs a charity – the Woodseats Community Garden, focused on wellbeing and nature recovery. Nathan also supported Bole Hill Woods in gaining Local Greenspace Status.

Since joining the School of Architecture and Landscape, Nathan has co-chaired the Landscape EDI Committee and served as Interim Director of One University, supporting EDI initiatives across the School. Nathan is currently the programme lead for the Landscape BA and MLA.

Career highlights:

Within private practice highlights include a ‘Greening the City Strategy’ for Nottingham Trent University’s city campus, a spatial strategy for the Longshaw Estate in the Peak District, and the design of a sustainable new carbon zero settlement in Monmouthshire focused on a post Covid world.

Other highlights include landscape interventions regarding environmental education, with the creation of the Dormouse Garden for Chester Zoo, a moorland garden within the Bloom York Festival and a secondment to Dublin working with the Irish Government on the establishment of their National Parks program. Other notable achievements include a design guide for underused spaces below Glasgow’s motorway system, a core paths guide for Edinburgh and the implementation of a new country park and wetland system at Grange Park Northamptonshire.

Most recently notable highlights during my work within academia include the support, submission and attainment of an Athena Swan bronze award recognizing moves towards gender and intersectional equity, and the launch of the Sheffield Ways Project, focusing on discipline identity and diversity for the School of Architecture and Landscape.