Renowned landscape designer Judy Ann Cunningham died this month at her home in Jemez Springs, New Mexico, at age 68. She leaves a legacy through her firm Mesa Design Group and through landscape designs that influenced and inspired a generation of architects, developers and place makers. “Judy Cunningham is undoubtedly a trailblazer, constantly pushing design boundaries. She possessed a whimsical magic to relate landscape with built structures,” said Trish Beckman principal at architecture firm Field Paoli. The people who walked through her environments — they paused and took delight.”
Cunningham officially retired in 2012, but she continued to help Dallas’ famously lush NorthPark Center plan its rotating artistic landscape architecture. For four decades, her attention to detail helped the 2 million-square-foot center’s leasing team ink deals with retailers heartened by management’s attention to detail. The center’s owner and original developer, Ray Nasher, hired Cunningham to design landscapes after admiring her work on displays at the mall’s Lord & Taylor.
Cunningham was a member of ICSC for more than 30 years and served on the CenterBuild committee for many of those. Publications like 21st Century Retail Centers, Landscape Architecture Magazine and Architype Review recognized her creative interior and exterior plant displays.
She also was an advocate for women in the industry. Beckman said: “I was personally touched by Judy’s encouragement to become involved with the ICSC CenterBuild Programs Planning Committee, which at that time over 10 years ago, was needing diversity in representation of age, gender and ethnicity. Year over year, she introduced me to key people who, with their collective support, carved a path and space for me to become a committee member. In fact, my present-day role as the 2021 CenterBuild conference chair has her handprint in it. I am one of many women whose lives she touched with her advocacy and encouragement.”
Cunningham, who had a bachelor’s degree in plant taxonomy, spared no expense in creating her landscape designs, shipping in exotic flora to complement NorthPark’s aesthetic. For the 2019 holiday season alone, Cunningham ordered 9,346 plants and 889 trees. In her career, she designed plant displays for more than 300 malls worldwide.
“Judy Cunningham’s over-40-year impact on shopping places is extraordinary,” said CRTKL principal Jeff Gunning, who has helped design innovative retail centers around the world. “She was among the first to utilize a unique plant palette as a design tool, creating sophisticated richness that elevates the experience of the shopper. Judy’s delightful landscape expressions helped to define today’s high standard of quality in the creation of shopping destinations.”
A sampling of Judy Cunningham’s work at NorthPark Center
By Brannon Boswell
Executive Editor, Commerce + Communities Today