Mary Barensfeld

Mary Barensfeld seeks to blur the lines between architecture, landscape architecture, structure, and art. Utilizing a design process melding hand modeling, sketching, and drawing with computer modeling, digital fabrication and animation, her work dives into structural integrity as a honest indicator of force and microscopic structure. Historic and natural site-specific parameters influence her studies in geometry-based systems thinking and fabrication innovation. Barensfeld, a licensed architect, spent twelve years in San Francisco, California, working on architecture, landscape, and engineering projects. This period of interdisciplinary study ignited a desire to seek a continuous synthesis of structure, topography, and form. Her award-winning and internationally published design firm, founded in 2013 and now based in Pittsburgh, PA, has landscape and architecture work built in both California and Pennsylvania. The firm’s mantra: Architecture does not stop with the building. Architecture and landscape should meld into one design process. 

View Mary's artwork in the 2023 exhibition Light Weight.