CUDC Quarterly, 3:2
 (Summer, 2003)

Designer Profiles

Julie Bargmann (DIRT Studio, Charlottesville, VA)
assisted by Heidi Baker
Julie Bargmann’s teaching at University of Virginia and her practice with DIRT Studio focus on the ecology and archaeology of industrial sites and degraded landscapes. Working with architects, artists and scientists, she seeks to combine environmental reclamation with an appreciation of the rich aesthetic and historical potential of these sites. Her book Toxic Beauty: A Field Guide to Derelict Terrain is currently in preparation from Princeton Architectural Press.

UDC staff member Eric Greenberg talking
with Matthew Urbanski and Julie Bargmann

Mario Schjetnan (Grupo de Diseño Urbano, Mexico City)
assisted by Alma Du Solier
Mario Schjetnan is a founding partner, together with José Luis Pérez, of Grupo de Diseño Urbano, which has built parks and urban design projects in Mexico and elsewhere, including the award winning Parque Ecológico Xochimilco and the Archaeological Museum at Paquimé. In addition to his professional work, Schjetnan is Director of the School of Landscape Architecture at the University of Arizona, Tucson.

Mario Schjetnan and Alma du Solier

Michael Sorkin (Michael Sorkin Studio, New York)
 assisted by Mirai Morita and Noah Burwell
A renowned teacher and critic of architecture and urbanism, Michael Sorkin founded Michael Sorkin Studio in 1977 as a vehicle for speculative and critical interventions in design practice. His office has done designs for new towns and neighborhoods on three continents, as well as unsolicited proposals for significant and contentious sites around the world. He is Director of the Institute of Urbanism at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and has taught at numerous other schools, including Yale, Harvard and Columbia universities. His critical writings include Variations on a Theme Park, Exquisite Corpse and The Politics of Propinquity. The work of Michael Sorkin Studio was published in the 1998 volume Wiggle.

Michael Sorkin at work in the Pointe Room

Matthew Urbanski (Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, New York)
assisted by Jennifer Bolstad
Matthew Urbanski is a principal of the New York office of the landscape architecture firm of Michael Van Valkenburgh Associaties and an adjunct member of the faculty of the Harvard Graduate School of Design. The numerous projects he has directed for MVVA include the redesign of the Jardin des Tuilleries, Paris, and the landscape for a proposed four-school engineering complex at the University of Arizona.

CUDC Alumni Team
Stephen Manka and Patrick Papczun were in the first class to receive their masters from the CUDC program in 2000. Papczun is now working for Lohan Associates in Chicago after a stint in Dublin. Manka is on the staff of the UDC. Christopher Faulhammer just graduated this year and is working at Dorsky Hodgson in Shaker Heights. They were assisted in the charrette by Rich Danicic.

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