Christopher Fannin

Designer, teacher, husband, father and friend; with his generosity of spirit, Chris Fannin made a difference and continues to do so through all who knew and loved him.

Obituary

For Chris Fannin, landscape was never background—it was the connective tissue of human life. His passing leaves a profound void in the global landscape architecture community, particularly across the Middle East, where his influence shaped not only skylines and coastlines but also the very way we think about public space. He believed the outdoors was not an amenity but a necessity. “I realised early on I was more interested in the spaces between buildings than the buildings themselves,” he once said. That revelation—made during his studies at the Rhode Island School of Design—became the compass for a career devoted to creating spaces that bring people together.

Raised in Boston, with a mother who was an architectural historian, Fannin grew up surrounded by ideas of place, form, and cultural heritage. Yet it was during his early design education that he found his calling. Landscape architecture, he discovered, was where art met life. “There was an inherent democracy in the ground plane,” he said. “It connects rather than divides.” That conviction shaped everything he touched, from mega-projects like Hamad International Airport in Qatar to local community improvements under Saudi Arabia’s Green Riyadh initiative. To him, scale was irrelevant; what mattered was connection. A few trees planted in the right place could transform lives just as powerfully as a billion-dollar master plan.

Fannin was among the first international landscape leaders to recognise the cultural shift unfolding across the Gulf. “Ten years ago, landscape meant a golf course,” he once remarked. “Today, clients and governments are seeing it as integral to sustainability, cultural identity, and everyday life.”  For Fannin, advocacy was best done through design, by showing how thoughtful landscapes could change lives. At HOK and later at InSite, he guided projects that married ecological sensitivity with civic purpose, including the vast Qiddiya Resort Core in Saudi Arabia, where InSite collaborated on the detailed master plan and continues to shape the public realm now rising from the desert. “These projects are transformative,” he said. “They let us explore what the public realm really means in this region.”

As a returning sponsor of the Landscape Middle East Awards and Conference (InSite), Fannin embraced the 2025 theme Nature and Community with characteristic clarity. To him, it wasn’t a slogan; it was a responsibility. “If you grew up in Boston, the UK, or Australia, nature and community were part of your daily rhythm,” he explained. “Here in the Gulf, the relationship with nature has been more observational than immersive; it’s something you look at, not something you live within.”

He spoke often about the need to shift from ornamental to experiential design—to make nature not a spectacle but a setting for life. He worried about the region’s fragile ecologies: the loss of mangroves, the pressure on coastlines, the thirst for development that risked erasing the very beauty it sought to celebrate. Yet he was equally optimistic about change. In both Qatar and Saudi Arabia, he pointed to large-scale adoption of treated greywater for irrigation as evidence of real progress toward sustainable cities.

Fannin’s idea of landscape was rooted in human equality. He often recalled his first visit to Abu Dhabi, where he witnessed families from every background gathered along the Corniche on a Saturday night. “There were Range Rovers next to beat-up cars, rich families, working-class families, everyone barbecuing, kids running wild,” he said. “It wasn’t a formal park—it was just space. But it was shared.” That image of spontaneous coexistence, of open ground as the great equaliser, guided his philosophy. “Even material changes signal who a space is for,” he once cautioned. “You walk from concrete to granite, and suddenly you feel watched, or like you don’t belong. That’s not real community space.”

He prioritised simplicity over spectacle, focusing on shade, movement, safety, and places to gather. He found beauty in authenticity, in skateparks and climbing gyms, those self-governing micro-communities where, as he said, “kids learn patience, etiquette, and collaboration.” He understood these places because he lived them; a lifelong skater turned climber, Fannin saw recreation not as leisure but as a metaphor for how people share space and learn respect.

Though modest about technology, he championed its value when it served a purpose. “I’m not a tech guy, but I hate waste,” he laughed. “BIM reduces waste, improves coordination, and gives us better control over execution.” For him, innovation was never novelty for its own sake—it was about consistency, accountability, and better stewardship of resources. Under his leadership, InSite adopted internal sustainability thresholds for every project, an approach he described as “moving from innovation to responsibility.” He believed in embedding sustainability not as a marketing term but as a professional standard.

Beyond his professional success, Fannin was known for his generosity as a mentor. He taught at several universities in the U.S. and the U.K., offering candid advice to students and young designers across the region. “Graduating from university isn’t the finish line—it’s the start of your education,” he would tell them. “Find a firm that will teach you, challenge you, and develop you. Don’t chase a job—chase growth.” He had an unpretentious warmth that made him universally liked. Whether discussing the latest Riyadh project or reminiscing about skating bowls in Dubai Hills, his enthusiasm was infectious. Those who worked with him recall a man of conviction but without ego—an architect of empathy as much as of space.

Christopher Fannin’s legacy endures in the landscapes he imagined and the people he inspired. His belief that the outdoors is where we belong will continue to guide a generation of designers who see landscape not as decoration, but as the framework of community life. As we walk through the shaded parks, waterfront promenades, and shared open spaces that bear his influence, we are reminded of his enduring message—that the truest measure of design lies not in what it looks like, but in how it makes us feel together.

*Text courtesy of Philip Higgins, who interviewed Chris in August 2025 for a forthcoming article in Landscape Middle East Magazine—they talked one-on-one for nearly two hours. This article was reworked by him after Chris’s passing.

Chris was a devoted husband, father, son, brother and uncle—he touched all of our lives and is deeply, deeply missed.

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