Brad Davis
Dan B. Franklin Distinguished Professor, MLA Program Coordinator
Brad E. Davis is the MLA Program Coordinator and the Dan B. Franklin Distinguished Professor for the College of Environment and Design. He is a licensed landscape architect with practice experience in South Florida and East Tennessee, where he designed residential fine gardens with a heavy emphasis on planting design, urban redevelopment projects, parks, and greenway trails. Noteworthy public projects include the Sailfish fountain downtown entrance to Stuart, Florida; The World’s Fair Park Greenway expansion to the Tennessee River in Knoxville, Tennessee, the Ayres Hall Quad restoration on the campus of the University of Tennessee, and numerous private residences.
Davis teaches design studios on community masterplanning and conservation neighborhood design, healing gardens and health design, summer travel study courses in plein air drawing and watercolor, and the CED’s annual East and West Coast field trips to visit professional offices and see iconic works of landscape architecture. In the summer of 2012 he taught on the UGA Cortona, Italy campus. While he teaches a wide range of courses, he is consistently found teaching plant community and identification courses. Davis enjoys igniting a passion for plants knowledge and better more ecological planting design in the next generation of landscape architects.
His scholarship looks at the intersection of ecological planting design and aesthetics and use of native plants in various contexts. Native plants are often viewed as messy and undesirable in human-dominated landscapes. Davis’ research seeks to develop design strategies to overcome negative perceptions and introduce individual native species with greater cultural appeal. He is currently testing unique native mixes of perennial grasses and forbs for use in urban green infrastructure projects and more rural sites. His work includes extensive teaching and research in the area of healing gardens and use of gardens and green spaces as part of health care settings.
When not teaching in the CED, Davis can be found tending his own experimental garden and small farm, spending time with family, or standing at an easel painting the landscape.
