Julia Czerniak is associate dean and professor of architecture at Syracuse University where she teaches studios as well as seminars on landscape theory and criticism. Czerniak is educated both as an architect (Princeton University, M. Arch 1992) and landscape architect (Pennsylvania State University, BA 1984) and her research and practice draws on the intersection of these disciplines. Although the techniques, scales and products of her research vary, Czerniak’s work focuses on the physical and cultural potentials of urban landscapes. Recent design research advances landscape as a protagonist in the remaking of Rust-Belt cities, from a series of public space interventions along a derelict creek to ecologically and spatially rich streetscapes for a newly planned campus of Syracuse University.
Czerniak’s work as a designer is complemented by her work as educator and writer, which in all cases advances design as a way to enable new ways of seeing, imagining, valuing and acting within our challenged anthropocentric environment. She is a prolific writer and has produced influential landscape architecture publications such as Large Parks (Princeton Architectural Press) and Case: Downsview Park Toronto (Prestel) which focus on contemporary design approaches to public parks and the relationship between landscape and cities. Czerniak lectures and teaches internationally, most recently delivering keynote lectures at the Onassis Foundation in Athens, the Large Parks in Large Cities conference in Stockholm and in the Open Space Summit in Brussels. She is currently the guest editor of JoLA 31 (Journal of European Landscape Architecture) on Landscape Criticism as well as the chief curator of the international conference Designing WATER, sponsored by Longwood Gardens and the American Academy in Rome.