Gerard Nadeau

Assistant Professor Nadeau is a licensed, LEED-accredited and NCARB-certified architect, artist and educator whose work explores community development through participatory tectonics, with an emphasis on material and form-finding methodologies for architectural design. A graduate of Cornell University with a Bachelor of Arts in English after an initial stint in the College of Engineering, and recipient of the Dorothy Sugarman Poetry Prize, Nadeau holds a Master of Architecture degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP), where he received a William Kinne Fellowship and a faculty commendation for his work in the history/theory sequence of the program.

Deeply influenced by his life-long association with Kenneth Frampton of the GSAPP, Nadeau derives his teaching, practice and research from the material and social imperatives of design and construction. A registered architect in Massachusetts and Florida with over two decades of design, construction administration and project management experience, Nadeau brings in-depth knowledge of the profession and creative research to the studio and classroom, previously as lead faculty at the Boston Architectural College (BAC) and as assistant professor at the Hammons School of Architecture, Drury University, and currently through graduate and undergraduate architectural design studio, digital design and fabrication courses, and green building design courses at BGSU.

Nadeau’s grant-funded participatory constructions have contributed signature works of creative placemaking to Artville (Nashville, 2026), Bowling Green State University (2026, 2024, 2023), the Toledo Museum of Art (Toledo, 2024), the Black Swamp Arts Festival (Bowling Green, 2023, 2024), the Momentum Festival (Toledo, 2024), the Springfield Museum of Art (Springfield, MO, 2013, 2015), and the Hand Art Center (Deland, FL, 2015), as well as a diverse array of community art festivals, urban “space as events,” and exhibits in Springfield, New York City and Boston. Winner of the American Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) 2016-2017 Creative Achievement Award, the Tau Sigma Delta Silver Medal and an AIA Ohio Design Award in 2024, Nadeau’s work has received international and national attention through online architecture forums such as Archinect, Bustler, and the AIA Small Firm Exchange (SFx), in addition to features by numerous community and regional news outlets.

A founding member of the ideaXfactory in Springfield, Missouri, Nadeau contributed substantially to the successful application by the City of Springfield for a $200,000 Artplace America grant to benefit the ideaXfactory in 2013, one of only two Artplace America grants awarded in Missouri out of 279 nationally between 2011-17. His ongoing research into material computation and form finding methodologies for design and construction is reflected not only in his recent built projects, but also in two current US utility patents #US 8,833,000 B1 and # US 9,546,478 B2 for “Continuous Tension, Discontinuous Compression Systems and Methods”.

Education

• Master of Architecture, Columbia University in the City of New York, Graduate School of Architecture, Preservation, and Planning, 1998
• Bachelor of Arts, English, Cornell University, 1985

Professional registrations

• State of Florida Registered Architect #AR98981
• Commonwealth of Massachusetts Registered Architect #20638

Professional certifications

• NCARB Certificate #72148   
• United States Green Building Council- LEED Accredited Professional

Patents

• Patent # US 8,833,000 B1, “Continuous Tension, Discontinuous Compression Systems and Methods”
• Patent # US 9,546,478 B2, “Continuous Tension, Discontinuous Compression Systems and Methods”

Awards and recogition

• 2024 AIA Ohio Design Award, Honorable Mention Award for Small Projects for Green World Annex, BGSU
• 2016-2017 ACSA Creative Achievement Award for Art of Space
• Tau Sigma Delta Silver Medal, Hammons School of Architecture Chapter, “for distinction in provocation”
• History/Theory Commendation, Columbia University
• William Kinne Fellowship, Columbia University
• Dorothy Sugarman Poetry Prize, Cornell University

Areas of creative practice and research

• Creative Placemaking
• Participatory Architectural Installation
• Form Finding Methodologies for Architectural Design
• Parametric Design and Digital Fabrication
• Green Building Design & Construction
• Climate Migration and the Built Environment