Barbara Swift
Barbara Swift, FASLA, Hon. AIA., founder of Swift Company, LLC, has built an award-winning practice that focuses on designs that respond to the circumstances of place. Her approach presumes that the development and use of the environment involves all aspects of culture, ecology, and life, and that a generous public environment is central to civic life. Her emphasis on planning and design ranges from work on pristine wild lands to urban conditions, reflecting her commitment to the quality and vitality of life in the West.
In addition to building a landscape architecture/urban design practice, Ms. Swift has been consistently active in the Northwest community, lecturing, teaching, writing, and serving on boards and commissions, including the ARCADE Editorial Committee, and chairing the Seattle Design and Arts Commissions. She was instrumental in establishing City Design, a Seattle city agency focused on urban design and the built environment. Her leadership has been acknowledged in the Seattle Times series “Looking for Leaders.” Ms. Swift’s work has resulted in artist residencies with Centrum and the European Ceramic Work Centre in The Netherlands. She is a 2015 Fellow of the University of Washington’s Runstad Center for Real Estate and is a principal investigator leading a Bullitt Foundation grant associated with the urban, public right-of-way.
Statement: Cornelia blew into Swift Company in the mid-1990s as we were completing a large urban ecosystem restoration project in Seattle’s Discovery Park. She had heard about our experiments with biosolids, Scots broom, woody seed use, and soil nutrient upgrades with the goal of developing self-sustaining grassland ecosystems. She was there to gather data prior to a site visit. At the time, I had long admired her work, her spirit, and her thinking. In the moment, I deeply appreciated her unvarnished, direct interest and support. I can’t remember her exact parting comment, but it was something like, “Way to go!” Over the years, I have been inspired by her direct focus, fire-in-the belly, generosity, and spirited way of being in the world. I contributed to the Oberlander Prize because I believe it is an important way to mark landscape architects and our role. There could not be a better standard to set—or approach to aspire to—than Cornelia. She is a force of nature fueled by a deep curiosity to explore, investigate, act, and share with clarity and opinion. She is a model of how to do it and how to make change. She is the role model for any landscape architect.