Margie Ruddick
Margie Ruddick is an international, award-winning landscape designer. For over 20 years, she has been recognized for her pioneering, environmental approach to urban landscape design, forging a design language that integrates ecology, urban planning, and culture.
Her transformative design for New York’s Queens Plaza has won awards for promoting a new idea of nature in the city, where stormwater, wind, sun, and habitat merge within an urban infrastructure to create a more sustainable vision of urban life. Her design for the new waterfront at Stapleton, in New York City, brings the harbor and city together in a park with cove and tidal wetlands, catalyzing the revitalization of this historic Staten Island district. Similarly, her work for the Trenton Capital Park restores the connection between the city and the Delaware River.
Ruddick’s international projects include the Shillim Institute and Retreat in the Western Ghats of Maharashtra, India. She remains with this project as a member of the Institute’s board. Ruddick also traveled to Chengdu, Sichuan, China to work with artist Betsy Damin designing the Living Water Park, the first ecological park in China, which cleans polluted river water biologically.
In addition to her recent teaching position at Princeton University, Margie Ruddick has taught at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, Yale University, the University of Pennsylvania, Parsons School of Design, and Schumacher College in England.
Ruddick was recognized as a finalist for the 2011 Cooper-Hewitt National Design Awards. Her many other awards include the 1998 Waterfront Centre Award and the 1999 Places Design Award, for the Living Water Park. Her work has received awards from the American Society of Landscape Architects and the American Institute of Architects. Margie Ruddick was selected by the Architectural League of New York for its 2003 Emerging Voices. She received the 2002 Lewis Mumford Award from Architects/Designers/Planners for Social Responsibility, as well as the 2006 Rachel Carson Women in Conservation Award from the National Audubon Society, an award that recognizes “visionary women whose contributions, talent, and energy have advanced conservation and environmental education locally and on a global scale.” Ruddick was named as one of the top ten women in green design by the Green Economy Post in 2010.
Margie Ruddick was born in Montreal and raised in New York City. She graduated from Bowdoin College and Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design.
She founded and managed her own practice, initially with landscape architect Judith Heintz, from 1988 to 2004, when Ruddick became a partner at the planning and design firm WRT. Since 2007 she has worked on projects independently, in addition to writing, lecturing, and teaching. Her forthcoming book is Wild by Design.
Announcements
Louis Kahn: The Importance of a Drawing
Louis Kahn: The Importance of a Drawing
Edited by Michael Merrill
Publisher: Lars Müller Publishers
Published: October 2021
The first in-depth study of drawings as primary sources of insight into architect Louis Kahn’s architecture and creative imagination. Based on unprecedented archival research, with over 900 illustrations and written contributions by Michael Benedikt, Michael Cadwell, David Leatherbarrow, Louis Kahn, Nathaniel Kahn, Sue Ann Kahn, Michael J. Lewis, Robert McCarter, Michael Merrill, Marshall Meyers, Jane Murphy, Gina Pollara, Harriet Pattison, Colin Rowe, David Van Zanten, Richard Wesley, and William Whitaker.
Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World’s Most Creative People
Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World's Most Creative People
By Debbie Millman
Publisher: Harper Design
Forthcoming: February 22, 2022
Debbie Millman—author, educator, brand consultant, and host of the widely successful and award-winning podcast Design Matters—showcases dozens of her most exciting interviews, bringing together insights and reflections from today’s leading creative minds from across diverse fields.
Louis Kahn: Architecture as Philosophy by John Lobell
Louis Kahn: Architecture as Philosophy
By John Lobell
Publisher: The Monacelli Press
Published: June 2020
Noted Louis I.Kahn expert John Lobell explores how Kahn’s focus on structure, respect for materials, clarity of program, and reverence for details come together to manifest an overall philosophy.
Our Days Are Like Full Years: A Memoir with Letters from Louis Kahn by Harriet Pattison
Our Days Are Like Full Years: A Memoir with Letters from Louis Kahn
By Harriet Pattison
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: October 2020
An intimate glimpse into the professional and romantic relationship between Harriet Pattison and the renowned architect Louis Kahn. Harriet Pattison, FASLA, is a distinguished landscape architect. She was Louis Kahn’s romantic partner from 1959 to 1974, and his collaborator on the landscapes of the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, and the F.D.R. Memorial/Four Freedoms Park, New York. She is the mother of their son, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Nathaniel Kahn.
Reading Graphic Design History: Image, Text, and Context by David Raizman
Reading Graphic Design History: Image, Text, and Context
By David Raizman
Publisher: Bloomsbury Visual Arts
Published: December 2020
An innovative approach to graphic design that uses a series of key artifacts from the history of print culture in light of their specific historical contexts. It encourages the reader to look carefully and critically at print advertising, illustration, posters, magazine art direction, and typography, often addressing issues of class, race, and gender.
David King: Designer, Activist, Visual Historian by Rick Poynor
David King: Designer, Activist, Visual Historian
By Rick Poynor
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: September 2020
A comprehensive overview of the work and legacy of David King (1943–2016), whose fascinating career bridged journalism, graphic design, photography, and collecting. King launched his career at Britain’s Sunday Times Magazine in the 1960s, starting as a designer and later branching out into image-led journalism, blending political activism with his design work.
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