Margie Ruddick, ASLA

The Queens Plaza bicycle and pedestrian landscape improvement project, led by Margie Ruddick and WRT, with Marpillero Pollack Architects, artist Michael Singer and Leni Schwendinger Light Projects, transformed the landscape of an industrial maze in Long Island City, the westernmost neighborhood of Queens, into a green corridor that welcomes pedestrians and bicyclists. The project spans one mile from JFK Park to the water's edge below the Queensboro Bridge.
Photo: Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum website, photo by Sam Oberter.

At Queens Plaza, low-maintenance and pollution-tolerant plants separate pedestrians from up to 14 lanes of traffic.
Photo: Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum website, photo by Marpillero Pollak

The National Design Awards from the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum were launched at the White House in 2000 as an official project of the White House Millennium Council. Today, Cooper-Hewitt has10 jury-selected award categories, including landscape architecture.

The 2013 recipient in the landscape architecture category is Margie Ruddick, ASLA, of Margie Ruddick Landscape Planning Design in Philadelphia (2007-present).

She received her MLA from Harvard University Graduate School of Design in 1988. Previously, she was a principal with WRT (2004-2007), operated Margie Ruddick landscape (1995 to 2004), and has worked for Heintz Ruddick, New York (1988-1997) and the Central Park Conservancy (1983-1985).

Ruddick is recognized for her environmental approach to urban landscape design, fostering nature in the city through such projects as New York's Queens Plaza, and Trenton Capital Park on the Delaware River. Ruddick's international work includes the Shillim Retreat in India and the Living Water Park, the first ecological park in China. Ruddick has worked with Judith Heintz and WRT, and has taught at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, University of Pennsylvania, Parsons School of Design, and Schumacher College in England. Her forthcoming book is Wild by Design.

Ruddick has taught at Harvard's Graduate School of Design, Yale, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania, Parsons School of Design and Schumacher College in England

Note: The Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum has been a branch of the Smithsonian since 1967. The Andrew Carnegie Mansion on Fifth Avenue in New York City, built between 1899 and 1902, received landmark status in 1974, and in 1976 reopened as the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum.