Dr Nicole Gardner

Nicole is the Program Director of Computational Design in the School of Built Environment, ADA, UNSW. She is a design researcher, educator, and Registered Architect (NSW ARB 7921) with industry experience in Australia and the United Kingdom. Her teaching and research focus on the recent history of design and urban technology, as well as on current innovations and industry practices in these fields. She has published research articles on digital transformation in the architecture industry through the lenses of design, learning, labour, and gender. She is the sole-author of the book Scaling the Smart City: The design and ethics of urban technology (Elsevier 2024) and has co-authored over forty peer-reviewed journal articles and conference papers on design technology innovation. Nicole has won and led multiple Commonwealth-funded grants on design technology innovation and the work of Japanese architect Shoei Yoh, and is a Chief Investigator for the $9million (AUD) Australian Research Council (ARC) Industrial Transformation Training Centre for Next Generation Architectural Manufacturing (awarded in 2022). In 2021, Nicole was awarded a UNSW Faculty Research Fellowship. She is a member of the Design Institute of Australia and the Computer Aided Design Research in Asia (CAADRIA) organisation, and held a Chair role for the CAADRIA conference: "Accelerated Design" in 2024, and was co-editor of the CAADRIA “Post-Carbon” conference proceedings in 2022. Nicole is committed to modes of research and teaching that connect theory and practice and researchers and the AEC industry.