Our new ongoing series, Champions of Design Entrepreneurship, created in partnership with Serena Martin of 24/7 Creative Agency, offers a rare, intimate look into the minds of industry trailblazers. Featuring first-person accounts from renowned designers, architects, artisans, and industry veterans, each story is a reflection of how they interpret what it means to be both a ‘champion’ and an ‘entrepreneur’ in our field. This fourth installment features Kligerman Architecture:

Margie Lavender, partner at Kligerman Architecture & Design, has a passion for buildings but also for gardening. Her approach to gardening has evolved as she came to understand its role in a major ecological conservation movement, a Garden Revolution, that asks us to look at the nature around us in urban and suburban areas through a new lens, as a viable part of an ecosystem. For much of the last century our land practices have been an ecological disaster. Simply stated, nature-based landscaping is embracing practices that allow for a healthy vibrant ecosystem that is safe for us, our kids, and our pets. 

It is omitting toxic chemicals like pesticides and fertilizers that are poisoning our soil, water and families. It is growing native plants that pollinating species have evolved to depend on, including blooms for nectar sustenance. It’s understanding the importance of host plants. It is changing some of our seasonal maintenance practices – which is generally less work, so should be an easy sell! It is reducing your lawn to just what you need for paths or recreation. It’s changing our relationship with the land from a position of dominance to stewardship.

In the Fall of 2020, she founded the Hastings Pollinator Pathway project along with a committed group of five others to build community support and open minds to nature-based gardening. Margie has channeled the organizational skills of an Architect into directing the committee’s efforts in a multitude of initiatives. The team has built a resourceful website including an interactive map for participants. 

They communicate through a quarterly newsletter with tips, volunteer opportunities, and calls to political action, and maintain Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest social media accounts. They developed an Adopt-a-Spot program with the Village government wherein citizens or institutions can adopt a portion of village property like a traffic island or an edge of a park to develop and maintain a pollinator garden, and they revived a long dormant Seed Exchange at the Hastings Public Library. 

Recently, with design direction from neighbor, fellow HPP member, and professional collaborator, Melissa Reavis of Hollander Design Landscape Architects, Margie and members of the Hastings Pollinator Pathway completed a three-year passion project to transform a vacant lot filled with debris and invasive Mugwort in the Village center into a thriving community pollinator garden, working with close to 100 volunteers and 2,000 native plants, trees, and shrubs. 

The Hastings Pollinator Pathway she built has had the side benefit of connecting community. It has brought together many like-minded souls with shared goals in Hastings and collaborations with the neighboring Rivertowns, but it has also expanded Margie’s connections to others in the design industry who have this shared interest. 

As she began weaving it into panel discussions and articles to spread the word, more and more people from builders, to designers, and marketing execs reached out to learn more or share their ecological garden experiences. It is a practice that delivers rewards in the garden, our environment, and our connections. 

Margie Lavender on diversity in design

In response to historical lack of diversity in the residential design industry, Kligerman Architecture & Design has engaged in a multi-faceted way. Tom Kligerman is President and founding member of the Design Leadership Foundation, whose mission is to ensure a culture of diversity, equity, and inclusion within the fields of architecture and design. 

With the goal of leveling the playing field in design education to create an inviting and supportive path for BIPOC students in extreme need — the organization developed 4 key programs to reduce the financial and emotional burdens on students and their families and will help universities produce well prepared graduates that will enter the workforce as equals.

In addition, partner Margie Lavender launched an internal KA&D summer internship program in partnership with the NYC institution, Prep for Prep, to open the door to students of color earlier, nurture their interest in design, and give them the tools to pursue architecture in their post-secondary education. The paid internship gives the students exposure to the workings of a firm, jobsites, and project meetings, in addition to software training, design exposure, portfolio, and interview direction. Having just completed its third summer in operation, the program has been a great success with participating members of the firm benefiting from the experience as much as the students. 

Tom Kligerman on the spirit of generosity

Generosity of spirit is an important aspect of our relationship with the world at large. So much of what we all benefit from-museums, parks, music programs, monuments-are available because someone had the forethought and benevolence to step outside their day-to-day business to make a gift–whether monetary or a gift of time and expertise. Or all of that. 

I have tried to follow that example by giving time (and yes, money) to a number of causes. Typically, they have been organizations in the architecture and design world.  I served on the board of the Sir John Soane’s Museum Foundation for over two decades, and was its president for more than eight years. I have been raising awareness about English architectural giant Sir Edwin Lutyens through a relatively new organization, the Lutyens Trust America. 

But recently, my interest and efforts have gone in a slightly different direction, the environment and helping to make education more widely accessible.

I helped found the Design Leadership Foundation, an organization through the Design Leadership Network that brings top architects, interior designers, and landscape architects together with college students. Additionally, we have raised money to help remove barriers to the design world for those who struggle with financial, time or cultural constraints. 

During Covid, I joined the board of the Billion Oyster Project. Our mandate is to save New York Harbor through the introduction of oysters by putting a billion oysters into the water in the next decade. Oysters filter the water, build flood and title surge resistant reefs and bring with them a wide variety of animal and plant species that have gone missing in New York harbor because of dredging, overeating and pollution. Much of the work to bring oysters back to New York Harbor is done by New York City public high school students who learn about the history of  New York City, Ecology, welding, scuba diving, marine skill and biology. 

It behooves all of us to step outside our professional lives to better our world through any gifts we can provide. I’ve been lucky to leverage this work through the team at Kligerman Architecture & Design, engendering a culture of generosity that thrives hand-in-hand with our core design work. 

Read More from our Champions of Design Entreprenuership here.