J M Gartly Design Studio Inc. is an award-winning consulting firm that specializes in heritage preservation, Downtown & established community revitalization, urban design, community planning and stakeholder and community engagement. With 30 years of experience in the areas of heritage conservation, urban design and planning, the firm seeks to create places that are good for people to live, that are experiential and that strive for beauty and a rich quality of life.
I am passionate about the documentation of history, preserving community character in downtowns and established communities through the conservation of historic buildings and sites, and creatively integrating heritage with city building.
I grew up in a small city that back in the 1970’s had intact heritage brick and masonry buildings – these buildings were a foundation for a flourishing historic downtown and city. Layered on that was the diversity that small businesses and department stores provided in my memories and experiences of social on-on-one interactions. The value of those memories continues to be the foundation of my professional successes in heritage conservation, urban design, community planning and architectural design projects.
I am the Principal of JMGartly Design Studio, which is a design and planning firm that provides specialized research, training, and consulting services for heritage conservation, downtown revitalization, and community-building projects. My projects vary from site specific in the form of building conservation and historic site master plans to neighbourhood, Main Streets, heritage districts and city-wide scale planning and design. My scope of work includes design and policy development through to establishing processes and implementation strategies for a municipality, non-profit or individuals.
I seek to creatively problem-solve heritage conservation and downtown revitalization issues with municipalities, community-organizations, and developers/landowners.
“Achieving project solutions and designs is not a linear process. This is a good thing as it ultimately allows back and forth with the client, community or user groups and professional teams to be creative, explore ideas, refine those ideas and ultimately this team effort achieves the best plan with the best stories to inspire and stimulate its realization.”
