Johanna Barthmaier-Payne is a landscape architect and cofounder of A TON, a multidisciplinary design studio that provides environmental advocacy and experiential education through landscape architecture, industrial design and graphic design. In her professional practice and research she examines the relationships between multiple scales of urban design, dynamic ecological and cultural systems, and community collaboration.
Leveraging her expertise as a graphic designer, artist and visualizer, Johanna explores and communicates large-scale ecological opportunities involving social and environmental issues in urban and built environments. She is dedicated to advancing knowledge on how ethical design, narrative, and visual communication can educate and support the broader public and promote nature-based solutions in design.
Johanna is a principal investigator for the Sustainability Design Lab (SDL), a five-year endowed curricular sequence focused specifically on materials commonly found in the New England region. The SDL explores creative approaches to sustainability through the study of materiality, material culture and the material processes that inform professional practices and the built environment.
She also serves as principal investigator for Equitable Nature-based Climate Solutions (ENACTS) a four-year, multi-institutional collaboration supported by the National Science Foundation. The partnership is focused on building environmental advocacy on nature-based design solutions (NbS)—specifically around stormwater management in medium-sized cities with high socioeconomic diversity in their populations that suffer from climate-related flooding and heat island problems. The research, supported by local knowledge and integrated social and natural sciences, engineering, art and design, will create an ecosystem of academia, government and communities to support more informed and equitable NbS decision-making and implementation.
Johanna has worked with internationally renowned firms such as James Corner Field Operations, OLIN and Atelier Jean Nouvel, contributing to a diverse range of projects from concept to construction, including The Presidio Tunnel Tops Project in San Francisco, the Seattle Central Waterfront and the Seattle Seawall. She also holds a BFA in Environmental Design from the Maryland Institute College of Art. She graduated with a master’s degree in Landscape Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania, where she was an ASLA Excellence Award recipient.
Courses
Fall 2024 Courses
INTAR 500G-01 / LDAR 500G-01 - SUSTAINABILITY LAB: ADVANCED RESEARCH STUDIO
Times: TTH | 1:10 PM - 5:10 PM; T | 9:40 AM - 11:40 AMInstructor(s): Johanna Barthmaier-Payne, Tom WeisLocation(s): Weybosset St Studios, Room 200Enrolled / Capacity: 14Status: Open
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This 6-credit advanced elective studio centers around the Sustainability Lab, an initiative between LDAR and INTAR departments to explore creative material approaches to sustainability. Looking specifically at materials common to the New England region, this hands-on research studio asks students to question current attitudes towards exploitative land uses and material cultures and push the boundaries of material use and techniques in professional architecture and landscape architecture design practices.
This studio focuses on New England's material cultures' environmental, geological, and socio-cultural influences and the impact of current land use and manufacturing practices on the professional design industry. This studio will explore one selected material each year through three main components. First, students will study the histories and stories of the selected material and land use and how they have shaped different regions of New England and become entangled in power relations, value systems, and wider networks of material exchange. Second, they will explore the selected material’s behavior, its unique property dynamics, and how they have influenced its different uses. Finally, using both digital and analog fabrication, students will develop iterative creative processes that explore sustainable ways of drawing and making with the selected materials as modular and in-situ techniques.
This is a co-requisite course. Students must register for LDAR/INTAR-500G and LDAR/INTAR-501G.
Students are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Landscape Architecture and Interior Architecture Graduate Students.
Elective
INTAR 500G-01 / LDAR 500G-01 - SUSTAINABILITY LAB: ADVANCED RESEARCH STUDIO
Times: TTH | 1:10 PM - 5:10 PM; T | 9:40 AM - 11:40 AMInstructor(s): Johanna Barthmaier-Payne, Tom WeisLocation(s): Weybosset St Studios, Room 200Enrolled / Capacity: 14Status: Open
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This 6-credit advanced elective studio centers around the Sustainability Lab, an initiative between LDAR and INTAR departments to explore creative material approaches to sustainability. Looking specifically at materials common to the New England region, this hands-on research studio asks students to question current attitudes towards exploitative land uses and material cultures and push the boundaries of material use and techniques in professional architecture and landscape architecture design practices.
This studio focuses on New England's material cultures' environmental, geological, and socio-cultural influences and the impact of current land use and manufacturing practices on the professional design industry. This studio will explore one selected material each year through three main components. First, students will study the histories and stories of the selected material and land use and how they have shaped different regions of New England and become entangled in power relations, value systems, and wider networks of material exchange. Second, they will explore the selected material’s behavior, its unique property dynamics, and how they have influenced its different uses. Finally, using both digital and analog fabrication, students will develop iterative creative processes that explore sustainable ways of drawing and making with the selected materials as modular and in-situ techniques.
This is a co-requisite course. Students must register for LDAR/INTAR-500G and LDAR/INTAR-501G.
Students are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Landscape Architecture and Interior Architecture Graduate Students.
Elective
Spring 2025 Courses
INTAR 502G-01 / LDAR 502G-01 - SUSTAINABILITY LAB: THESIS STUDIO
Times: M | 9:40 AM - 11:40 AM; MTH | 1:10 PM - 5:10 PMInstructor(s): Johanna Barthmaier-Payne, Tom WeisLocation(s): Bayard Ewing Building, Room 109Enrolled / Capacity: 14Status: Open
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This 6-credit Thesis Studio centers around the Sustainability Lab, an initiative between LDAR and INTAR departments to explore creative material approaches to sustainability. Looking specifically at materials common to the New England region, this hands-on research studio asks students to question current attitudes towards exploitative land uses and material cultures and push the boundaries of material use and techniques in professional architecture and landscape architecture design practices. Students enrolled in this course are required to register for the co-requisite seminar INTAR/LDAR 503G - Sustainability Lab: Material Tectonics + Fabrication.
The Sustainability Lab Thesis studio builds on the work developed in the Fall semester and the progress students have made in articulating a material inquiry for their thesis direction and a theoretical and methodological framework for their research. In this course, each student will continue the development of their design research project in discussion with their primary faculty advisor and secondary and tertiary advisor.
Students are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Landscape Architecture and Interior Architecture Graduate Students.
Elective
INTAR 502G-01 / LDAR 502G-01 - SUSTAINABILITY LAB: THESIS STUDIO
Times: M | 9:40 AM - 11:40 AM; MTH | 1:10 PM - 5:10 PMInstructor(s): Johanna Barthmaier-Payne, Tom WeisLocation(s): Bayard Ewing Building, Room 109Enrolled / Capacity: 14Status: Open
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This 6-credit Thesis Studio centers around the Sustainability Lab, an initiative between LDAR and INTAR departments to explore creative material approaches to sustainability. Looking specifically at materials common to the New England region, this hands-on research studio asks students to question current attitudes towards exploitative land uses and material cultures and push the boundaries of material use and techniques in professional architecture and landscape architecture design practices. Students enrolled in this course are required to register for the co-requisite seminar INTAR/LDAR 503G - Sustainability Lab: Material Tectonics + Fabrication.
The Sustainability Lab Thesis studio builds on the work developed in the Fall semester and the progress students have made in articulating a material inquiry for their thesis direction and a theoretical and methodological framework for their research. In this course, each student will continue the development of their design research project in discussion with their primary faculty advisor and secondary and tertiary advisor.
Students are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Landscape Architecture and Interior Architecture Graduate Students.
