Nicole Nomura (M.L.A./M.R.P. ’22) is spending her summer in Honolulu, Hawai’i as a design fellow for SHADE Institute, a public-interest design organization focusing on sustainable and resilient planning and design for underserved communities throughout Hawai’i. As part of the fellowship program, each fellow is assigned a professional mentor who aids the mentee through SHADE projects, as well as becomes involved in their own practice. This year, Joel Kurokawa, who formerly served as SHADE’s president, is Nicole’s mentor, giving her guidance and experience on landscape design projects on the Island.
Joel is the principal and founder of Ki Concepts, a landscape architecture and site planning firm based in Honolulu that provides conceptual design and post-construction landscape management services for a wide range of projects throughout the state of Hawai’i and the Pacific Basin. Through this mentorship, Nicole has been involved in several current projects the firm is currently leading in partnership with the Honolulu government.
“I have been building a comprehensive plant palette for the City and County of Honolulu’s Green Infrastructure and Low-Impact Development Best Management Practices (BMP) for stormwater management,” Nicole shared.
This project has been a collaborative effort between engineers, landscape architects, architects, and planners to establish BMP standards, which will all be part of a finalized government report for the City and County of Honolulu.
Nicole has also been working on a landscape design project for a private residential property located in the mountainous region on the west shore of the Island.
“We are helping this resident develop his property to include stormwater management features because this side of the Island is more frequently wet, compared to the rest of Oahu. We’ve designed a beautiful rock swale with dams going downhill to divert the rainfall on this side of the mountains.”
Nicole feels this summer has augmented what she’s been learning through her experience as a dual degree student at Cornell in planning and landscape architecture. Between her landscape projects with her mentor’s firm and the community design work through SHADE, Nicole aspires to combine these skills she’s obtaining to leverage her interest in participatory planning and design endeavors in her professional career to serve the communities that need it the most.