Speaker Series:

Nina Briggs

Nina Briggs is the founding principal of THE FABRIC in Pasadena, California, and teaches landscape architecture at Cal Poly Pomona. Ms. Briggs received a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Southern California, and has taught architecture, interior architecture and landscape architecture at Cal Poly Pomona, California State University Northridge, The University of California Los Angeles Extension ARCID, The Art Institute of Los Angeles, Woodbury University, and College of the Canyons. Her collaborative approach to designing spaces for people, holistically incorporates sensitive listening and informed observation of human behavior within the layers of their cultural operating systems. Nina seeks to elevate and redefine placemaking to positively affect inhabitants psychologically, while solving spatial problems.

Her interdisciplinary analysis of architecture and design in the context of culture, draws from anthropology, psychology and human geography, thinking beyond the traditional boundaries of space-making. Through ethnographic research, via cognitive and human behavioral mapping, Nina observes and analyzes the psychological responses to space, producing empirical data and theories, generating hypotheses that inform design more effectively and sensitively. As design becomes increasingly interdisciplinary, she explores how these shifts in paradigms transform design pedagogy and practice.