Julie Bargmann is a force of nature. For over three decades, the Virginia-based practitioner has not only transformed landscapes but also how we perceive them. Her work in remediating post-industrial sites into thriving, productive green spaces has demonstrated that landscape architecture is an activist realm – one of reclaiming, recycling and reimagining. AZURE is delighted to host Julie Bargmann in Toronto for two exceptional design events.

• AZURE Talk session on Thursday, June 20 at 6:30 pm – Bargmann will deliver a presentation on her inspiring career at George Brown’s Waterfront Campus. This talk qualifies for one Structured Learning Hour.
• The 2024 AZ Awards Gala on Friday, June 21at 6:30 pm – Bargmann will join AZURE as Guest of Honour for the reveal and celebration of this year’s AZ Awards winners and finalists.

Tickets for both events are on sale now at Early Bird pricing. You save more with our bundled offer.

A leader in the design and building of regenerative landscapes, Bargmann is also a rigorous, adventuresome educator in the University of Virginia’s lauded School of Architecture. She founded D.I.R.T. studio in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 1992 to execute projects with the passion, vision, and the unflinching honesty that defines her distinctive style. Bargmann’s work hews to themes of economy of means, neighbourhood connections, respect for site histories, and above all a love of the landscape — specifically, the existing and often former industrial landscape. Simplicity of form, use of existing materials, and deliberate restraint are hallmarks of her evocative and authentic landscapes.

“Unearthing the raw ingredients of design from waste and wastelands defines my life’s work,” Bargmann has said. She seeks “a larger canvas, namely, post-industrial cities and regions. There exists massive potential and sublime beauty in places that may seem, at first blush, to be trashed. Sites, neighbourhoods, entire cities — they are full of energy waiting to be recognized, released, and given new form.”

Among projects that Bargmann has played a major role in: the Vintondale Reclamation Park in Vintondale, Pennsylvania, a 35-acre site in coal country designed as a “natural filtration system” that addresses polluted mine runoff; and the Urban Outfitters Headquarters at the U.S. Navy Yard in Philadelphia, where reused materials, including concrete chunks, brick, rusted metal, and other materials combine to create a beautiful landscape that also reduces greenhouse gas emissions.

AZURE recently wrote about Bargmann’s current role in revitalizing numerous sites in Detroit through her collaboration with Prince Concepts. She created a “misfit forest,” a parking lot planted with a porous landscape, a 743-square-metre park – “a bona fide urban woodland under a leafy canopy of 87 trees, including flowering dogwoods and locusts” – and more.

In addition to the numerous national awards she has received over the years for her work with D.I.R.T., Bargmann became the inaugural recipient of the Cornelia Oberlander International Prize in Landscape Architecture in 2021. The jury noted that Bargmann has been “a provocateur, a critical practitioner, and a public intellectual. She embodies the kind of activism required of landscape architects in an era of severe environmental challenges and persistent social inequities.” Through her works established and evolving, Bargmann continuously pushes the envelope of landscape design and how landscapes, cultures, and built fabric go hand and hand.

The 2024 AZ Awards is presented by Alumilex, Cosentino and Keilhauer and sponsored by Colombo Design America and Technogym. Gala sponsors are George Brown College’s Brookfield Sustainability Institute, Dark Tools, Landscape Forms, Scavolini and Vogt.

Media Partners: Archello, ArchDaily, Archilovers, Archinect, Archiproducts, The Architect’s Newspaper, Architonic, Bustler, Design Week Mexico, v2com newswire and World-Architects.