Projects in Practice: Chad W. Tyler
Chad W. Tyler (BLA 2004) is an award-winning exhibition designer, artist, and adventurer who has been creating unique experiences for museums, dance, theater, and landscape for nearly two decades.
As a Bachelor of Landscape Architecture candidate at the University of Illinois, Tyler began exploring overlooked and unexpected contexts for landscape architecture within scenic design, choreography, and exhibition design. After completing his BLA, he extended that inquiry through an Edward L. Ryerson Traveling Fellowship in Paris, France. His career then began at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, where he joined a renowned team of artists and fabricators as a specialist in the design and production of landscape dioramas.
After completing dioramas for three major permanent exhibitions at the Field Museum and remaking the landscape settings for the displays in its iconic Hall of Dinosaurs, Tyler was invited to join the Oceanarium redevelopment team at the John G. Shedd Aquarium, where he oversaw the design and construction of the Pacific Northwest landscape replications and played a lead role in the design and construction of the Polar Play Zone children’s exhibition. Two years later, Tyler relocated to Baltimore, Maryland, as the in-house exhibit designer at the National Aquarium. In five years there, he served as the lead designer in the Department of Exhibits and Design, taking multiple projects end-to-end—including the Living Seashore gallery, winner of the Award of Excellence in Exhibits from the American Alliance of Museums and the Top Honors award from the Association of Zoos and Aquariums.
Shifting to the private sector in 2015, Tyler worked for five years as Senior Exhibit Designer at Quatrefoil Associates, where he led the design of over a dozen major projects—among them the Virtual Science Center in Santa Clara, California; the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame and Museum; and the Los Alamos History Museum.
In 2020, Tyler launched his own practice, Chad Tyler/Design, based in Baltimore, providing design consultation and contracting services for projects in museums, science centers, and higher education settings, with a wide range of clients including Roto Group (RiverWorks Discovery; Museum of Science, Boston; Colorado University CIRES), the Virtual Science Center, and the Whiting School of Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
This event will be livestreamed on Zoom. To access the Zoom platform, please register.
The Projects in Practice series of talks by alumni-practitioners is made possible with support from the Visiting Practitioner Fund in the Department of Landscape Architecture.
For more information about this and other events in our spring 2022 series, please contact Prof. Conor O’Shea.