Nozomi Nakabayashi’s practice centers on the intersection of architecture, landscape design and ecology—based around a simple belief that, the role of design is to connect people’s everyday lives with nature.
Nozomi set up her own design practice in the U.K. in 2013, following her studies leading to her Master of Architecture degree from the Architectural Association School of Architecture based in the AA’s woodland Hooke Park campus, where she was a core member of the design and construction team of "Big Shed", an experimental timber-built assembly workshop. She has 16 years of professional experience in public architecture and landscape/public realm design, having worked at Root And Erect (formerly Erect Architecture) in London, Kendall Heaton Associates in the U.S.A and SANAA in Japan. She was a visiting lecturer in architecture at UAL Central Saint Martins College of Art, Spatial Practice Programme in London.
Nozomi’s design approach is both research-oriented and hands-on. She believes that solutions emerge from a direct engagement with materials and the natural environment.
“Life is about learning and playing” is central to her pursuits, which connect the hands, the mind, and nature. Beyond architecture and landscape design, her ongoing practices include playing and making the oud, playing the daf, Kung Fu and Qi Gong, and understanding soil ecology.
EDUCATION
Master of Architecture - Architectural Association School of Architecture (Design & Make program) - U.K. 2012
Bachelor of Architecture - Rice University Rice School of Architecture - U.S.A. 2006
Lifetime Student of Music, Movement, Nature and Design
AWARD
2016 AJ Small Projects Award - Shortlist, U.K.
WORKSHOPS/RESEARCH/PUBLICATIONS
2025 (Workshop Participation) Organic Civil Engineering in Noto and Nasu, JAPAN
2024 (Workshop Leadning) “Ways of Improving Soil Ecology Workshop” at Bethnal Green Nature Reserve in London, UK.
2023 (Workshop Participation) Lime and Clay Plaster Workshop for a strawbale-built school learning space from School of Natural Building in London UK.
2023 (Workshop Participation) Clay Plaster Workshop for a strawbale-built assembly space at Building Baladi in Lebanon.
2023 (Field Research) of vernacular natural building and construction methods of houses in Labanon (Learning from an ethnologist, photographer and the leading researcher on vernacular building typology of the Levant Houda Kassatly).
2022 (Workshop participation) in Japanese lime and clay plaster at Pamimomi Okayama, Japan.
2016 (Installation) Communal Knowledge at Work, The Showroom, London, U.K.
2015 (Online Publication) AA Conversations, Architectural Association School of Architecture, U.K.
2014 (Workshop Presentation) The Bio Base Seminar, MakingLewes, U.K.
(Project featured in below publications)
2025 Modern Tree Houses, Taschen, Germany.
2018 The Anatomy of Treehouses: Stylish Hideaways and Retreats by Jane Field-Lewis, Gibbs Smith, USA.
2017 Le liège dans l'architecture, le design, la mode et l'art, BOU-GE, France.
2017 Reclaimed Living, Prestel
2016 The Hinterland, Gestalten, Germany.
2015 Backyard Boltholes, Wallpaper Magazine, U.S.A.
2015 My Hole and Corner, Hole&Corner, U.K.