May 16th, 2024

Margie Lavender Partner, Kligerman Architecture & Design

Margie Lavender is an architect and partner at Kligerman Architecture & Design (KAD). The firm’s residential and boutique commercial projects are known for their distinctive design that is rooted in tradition, but modern in its sculptural forms, taut detailing, glass expanses, and often a touch of whimsy. To their complex projects in NYC and throughout the United States, Margie brings an expert eye for detail, honed over 24 years as an architect, as well by her studies and travels in Japan. Her appreciation of craft in architecture, and its interplay with nature and light coalesced there, and continues to influence her thoughts about beauty, and flourishes in her architecture practice at KAD. Her office is set in midtown Manhattan on the 45th floor overlooking the Empire State Building and Bryant Park. 

In 2021, Margie launched an 8-week summer internship program in partnership with the NYC institution, Prep for Prep, whose mission is to develop future leaders by creating access for young people of color to first-rate educational and professional advancement opportunities. Margie is also passionate about gardening and our human relationship to nature. She channels this into her own garden, as well as acting as the Garden Club of Irvington’s Conservation Committee co-chair, and their GCA National Affairs and Legislation delegate. She is co-founder and lead of the Hastings Pollinator Pathway, a volunteer project focused on gardening for biodiversity.

the cream will always rise to the top 

Margie Lavender grew up in Dallas, the youngest of three sisters, all uniquely ambitious and fiercely independent. This was in no small part to their single mother’s influence, who often told her daughters, “The cream will always rise to the top;” Margie saw this more as a directive than an adage. Her talk will touch on those years, her years in Austin, and those in which she tread her own path in the mountains of Colorado, and ultimately in New York City. The heart of the talk will focus on the design studio in Japan Margie participated in during architecture school. All that she took away from it not only shaped her vision of beauty, design, and architecture, it continues to shape and inform her work today. In her talk, Margie will introduce 5 Kligerman Architecture & Design projects as case studies and integrate them with the Five Key Elements that are rooted in her time and studies in Japan: Connection to Nature, Craft, Surprise, Beauty, and Reinvention.