Darrin Nordahl

Darrin Nordahl was born in 1970 in Oakland, California. He completed his bachelor’s degree in landscape architecture at the University of California at Davis and his master’s degree in urban design at the University of California, Berkeley. Nordahl has taught in the City and Regional Planning Department at UC-Berkeley and in the Landscape Architecture program at UC-Berkeley Extension. Interested in a new perspective on city building and design, Nordahl moved to Davenport, Iowa, a once agricultural Rustbelt city now poised to redefine urbanism in the Midwest. He is currently the urban designer for the City of Davenport and operates the municipality’s Design Center. His work—a mélange of Left Coast idealism and Midwestern pragmatism—has generated headlines in newspapers and network news stations throughout the Quad Cities. He enjoys life in America’s Heartland, along America’s great river, the Mississippi, with his wife Lara, son Nathaniel, and daughters, Noe and Mia.