Nicole Valois is a landscape architect with degrees from the Université de Montréal (B.A.P.) and the École nationale supérieure d'architecture de Paris La Villette (D.E.A.). She worked for over 15 years as a consultant and for the City of Montreal before devoting herself entirely to teaching and research. As a professor at UdeM's School of Urban Planning and Landscape Design, she teaches the design studio and coordinates the master's program in landscape architecture. Her expertise lies in landscape heritage and drawing as a form of knowledge, conversation and creation, opening up new perspectives on the environment. She is also a painter, draftswoman and notebook artist.
Among her achievements are several landscape and heritage studies, as well as research-creation activities whose publications and broadcasts have contributed to enriching knowledge in landscape architecture. Among the most noteworthy are Étude patrimoniale du campus de l'Université de Montréal, Patrimoine paysager moderne au Canada, Analyse paysagère du Mont-Royal and Histoire de la formation en architecture de paysage à l'UdeM, published by Journal of Landscape, Projets de paysage and Presses de l'Université de Montréal. On drawing, her research and works have been widely disseminated (La vitalité / Drawing liveliness (2020); Passing Through-Sara Tutt (2021); Winter drawings on the University of Montreal campus (2023); Dessin-design-projet : une triade qui ouvre vers la recherche (2023) and Empreintes plurielles (2025).
Over the course of her career, she has received grants from the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and the Canada Council for the Arts. Her research has been funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Landscape Architecture Canada Foundation and the Ministère de la Culture et des Communications. Her expertise has been put to good use on numerous juries and committees within organizations such as the CSLA, the AAPQ and the Conseil du patrimoine de Montréal. She has been a member of the Land: Terre Design Research Network since 2018. In 2024, she received the Teaching Award from the Canadian Society of Landscape Architects.
