Urban Outfitters : URBN's Landscape Architect Julie Bargmann wins the Inaugural Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Prize

The Oberlander Prize, an initiative of The Cultural Landscape Foundation, includes a $100,000 award and two years of public engagement activities focused on the laureate and landscape architecture

October 14, 2021 (Washington, D.C.) - The Cultural Landscape Foundation ("TCLF") today announced that Julie Bargmann is the winner of the inaugural Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Prize ("Oberlander Prize"). The biennial Oberlander Prize, which includes a $100,000 award, two years of public engagement activities focused on the laureate's work and landscape architecture more broadly and is named for the late landscape architect Cornelia Hahn Oberlander, is bestowed on a recipient who is "exceptionally talented, creative, courageous, and visionary" and has "a significant body of built work that exemplifies the art of landscape architecture." The Oberlander Prize Jury Citation notes of Bargmann: "She 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."

Urban Outfitters Corporate Office Project:
Urban Outfitters Headquarters at the U.S. Navy Yard, Philadelphia, PA (2005-14): Encompassing nine acres of the Navy Yard's Historic Core, this campus with huge brick buildings centered around a battleship-sized dry dock. Starting with the rough, working site as the inspiration, the project became a model for the artistic and ecologically sound reuse of materials, including concrete chunks nicknamed Barney and Betty Rubble, as well as brick, rusted metal and other materials. The salvaging strategy obviated the need for imported materials and kept nearly a thousand cubic yards of waste from being landfilled. Miles of buried railroad tracks were unearthed and informed the layout and routes for pedestrian pathways. "The URBN campus expands the client's aesthetic pursuit of material reinvention to establish a broader capacity for ecological performance," said the jury upon bestowing the project with an American Society of Landscape Architects Honor Award. "With the Yard's expanses of concrete and asphalt reused on-site, nearly a thousand cubic yards of waste didn't make it to a landfill and site perviousness was increased by about eight hundred percent."

Collaborators: Meyer Scherer & Rockcastle, architects; Advanced GeoServices, Corp., engineers; Blue Wing Environmental, environmental engineers

Watch Julie describe the design process for the Navy Yard campus here >

Learn More:
Full Press Release >
The Cultural Landscape Foundation Interview with Julie >