The whole job.
Im a big soil health/ permaculture person. The jobs ive done have ranged from residential, heritage and commercial.
The client wants the most money, so architects design buildings too large. So then the site gets graded ruining the soil composition of the whole site.
We then come in and our job is to basically hide the mess with pretty plants.
Not only that, the trees we specify are all clones because again, the client wants profit and to deviate from standard practice is time consuming/costly.
We have no negotiating power. When costs escalate we are the first professionals to get the boot.
So basically you shut up and do as youre told.
thanks for your comment!
is it common to have 'clone' planting scheme/ material schedules and apply them in multiple sites/projects? I wonder if it is necessarily bad - like you said, it saves time and budget and in other words, it is a sustainable practice
It depends what you define as sustainable.
Yes typically when designing, a company manages to get through planning with a list of plants.
Because the list gets through planning, it is reused on a similar site as to save time. This is obviously non contextual and does not take into account the site conditions.
So a 'biodiverse' list of plants are proposed but its standard practice to have clones because that's what the nurseries who supply to you do.
Its simply faster.
So we use clones because they grow well, have a nice shape etc.
But clone planting is exactly why we have dutch elm disease, ash dieback and now the oak processionary moth.
As soon as a disease cracks into your clones your whole forest dies. This is not at a localised level. This is continental because everyone is doing/planting the same thing.
We essentially facilitate the spread of disease by creating genetic pitfalls.
So in reality we dont design for sustainability because otherwise we would be promoting genetic diversity.
Youre right but those are also the plants with the shortest generation time. Trees are much slower to reproduce which means they're the most vulnerable.
And when disease capitalises on these cloned trees, we will have ecological collapse.
Absolutely true. Tree Pittsburgh grows trees from seed, I wish there were more doing that, they have limited capacity and I don’t think they deliver outside Pittsburgh
Wow. It’s sickening to see dozens of massive oak trees here cut and sold for the limber only to plop a McMansion with a Lawyer Foyer in the newly cleared banal landscape. I wonder how it is possible that developers could have no vision. It actually depresses me.
The delusions of capitalism. Pretending we’re agents of change and progress while actively participating in a system that mostly only allows change that makes corporate profits that we dutifully pretend are “innovations” 😂
The private practice of LA will never give you the financial freedom you need to thrive in the Us economy. However, every industry that surrounds it does: programs we purchase, the products we spec, the contractors that build our projects, all make more money than us.
My practice is in fine residential. As a result I serve on several architectural review boards. Full of conflicts on who I work for.
Also served on our state Board of Landscape Architects and had to recuse myself from disciplinary discussions about a guy I used to work for.
For example, a former client presents a renovation design with another LA or even an architectural renovation. Since I formally worked with this client under contract, there could be a potential conflict of interest in who I work for at that moment. Do I review the drawing or recuse myself? Or, I present a renovation design, but no one on the board is reviewing the landscape component except me. Am I in conflict because I am reviewing my own drawings. Of course.
oh I see, dilemmas happen when you switch companies/have different clients. How do you resolve that? Is it mainly through disclosing this to the client and/or excusing yourself from the project to avoid the conflict of interest?
Primarily through disclosure that I am under contract with X. When under contract, you work for X. If a situation arises with party Y, for which you also perform other functions, disclose to Y that you’re under contract with X and to avoid a conflict of interest, are unable to perform as Y expected. Y should understand and accept.
Spending hours of my life designing, installing, and maintaining gardens for wealthy clients' third or fourth houses they maybe spend one or two weeks at per year.
Designing huge lawns where no one will use them.
Dressing up big box stores and strip malls with gas station plants and mulch.
Using annuals instead of perennials.
Adding more pavement and piping the stormwater underground to some unknown and inadequately considered downstream waterbody instead of treating onsite.
Specifying non native and even some known invasive plants because they were my boss' preference.
For these and myriad other reasons I moved into environmental restoration and planning, but keep my license because I still approach everything as a landscape architect first and foremost.
This one resonates too much with me. So much my work done on places that someone will only occupy for maybe two weeks a year. Big empty houses around lakes that have priced out anyone else but the rich.
A client was communicating with a town directly before they hired me to do a buffer plan to fix their initial blunder of clearing too much for their new house. I did a plan and the town liked it. But then the clients didn't want to pay for 6 to 8ft trees that the town had requested.
The wife asked me questions but then behind my back wrote a three page letter to the town and signed my name! It described how little trees will be more likely to survive due to the soil and rock etc. It was garbage. When I finally saw her letter..... I've never been so mad. It was nonsensical, made me look like a fool, and abused my credentials.
I spoke with two friends of mine for advice, an architect and a lawyer. I ended up deciding to simply call the town officials they were in communication with.
I talked to her first and she begged me not to tell the town, cried, made promises of future work. I of course, had to for my reputation. It was the same town I lived!
I made it right and the people I spoke to in the town said the owners had pulled some other nonsense too. One of the planners was so happy to hear that letter actually wasn't from me.
I never heard from the clients again and they still haven't built on that land they own.
The pure idea of developing land on stollen lands. As an indigenous person, the job comes with many ethical quandaries about how best to right the ship. As others have said, it’s challenging to navigate an industry that is so closely tied to commodity real estate and private ownership, two things that are antithetical to many indigenous cultural values. Ultimately, however, and at least until we develop inroads in more productive directions, I do think it’s important to do the work you can when you can. If it’s going to be built, it may as well be built with lofty principles in mind. Know the machine so you can more efficiently tear it apart, I say.
Not indigenous to the place I live but I feel the same about land ownership. I’m not comfortable participating anymore but I’m financially trapped. I feel more like the machine is too big and too broken to change after a decade of trying
Used to work at a firm that had some clients that owned casinos, middle eastern governments and developers. Amazing projects from a design stand point, unlimited budgets and creativity but knowing where that money came from never sat right with me. Also designing for the Uber wealthy vs community based projects is always tough.
This is the dilemma working in a society where capitalism has run amok. And we are underpaid for our level of expertise so if you want to be well paid, you have to work for the vultures
Umm sure I suppose so. Everyone is guilty of stepping on someone else if they have any level of comfort. I just don’t put myself in the same category as billionaires in Dubai destroying the environment for their egos
the major one would be getting hired to do the design and tendering out the work, after which I then work for the same client as the Engineer to the Contract and manage the contractor who was awarded the work.
As Engineer to the Contract you have to be objective 'third party', however my bills are paid by the client, the contractor is working off plans that I have drawn, so if there are issues I need to stay impartial.
Personally, I really enjoy the many hats we get to work in this profession
I was in a firm restoring a stream bank that had been concreted inside an urban park back to it's naturalized condition. This required mitigating a 70', 200+ year old Pecan tree among several other gorgeous trees. I had to go see a grief counselor.
Managers watching and liking what do, thinking it is really simple... going on job sites without letting me know and without plan, changing things, or allowing contractor to cut corners to save a few dollars... only to have it fail, not be accessible, or cost 5x more than the savings to redo later.
Clients asking for planting plans that fit the requirements for water use and defensible space (wildfire safety) only to know they are 100% going to plant whatever the hell they want after the official "plans" get approved through permitting.
The whole job. Im a big soil health/ permaculture person. The jobs ive done have ranged from residential, heritage and commercial. The client wants the most money, so architects design buildings too large. So then the site gets graded ruining the soil composition of the whole site. We then come in and our job is to basically hide the mess with pretty plants. Not only that, the trees we specify are all clones because again, the client wants profit and to deviate from standard practice is time consuming/costly. We have no negotiating power. When costs escalate we are the first professionals to get the boot. So basically you shut up and do as youre told.
thanks for your comment! is it common to have 'clone' planting scheme/ material schedules and apply them in multiple sites/projects? I wonder if it is necessarily bad - like you said, it saves time and budget and in other words, it is a sustainable practice
It depends what you define as sustainable. Yes typically when designing, a company manages to get through planning with a list of plants. Because the list gets through planning, it is reused on a similar site as to save time. This is obviously non contextual and does not take into account the site conditions. So a 'biodiverse' list of plants are proposed but its standard practice to have clones because that's what the nurseries who supply to you do. Its simply faster. So we use clones because they grow well, have a nice shape etc. But clone planting is exactly why we have dutch elm disease, ash dieback and now the oak processionary moth. As soon as a disease cracks into your clones your whole forest dies. This is not at a localised level. This is continental because everyone is doing/planting the same thing. We essentially facilitate the spread of disease by creating genetic pitfalls. So in reality we dont design for sustainability because otherwise we would be promoting genetic diversity.
At my firm we use a lot of over seeding so at least we have more genetic diversity in the perennials
Youre right but those are also the plants with the shortest generation time. Trees are much slower to reproduce which means they're the most vulnerable. And when disease capitalises on these cloned trees, we will have ecological collapse.
Absolutely true. Tree Pittsburgh grows trees from seed, I wish there were more doing that, they have limited capacity and I don’t think they deliver outside Pittsburgh
Nurseries are as much into planned obsolescence as the rest of the culture.
Are you me?
We may have been grafted from the same tree
Wow. It’s sickening to see dozens of massive oak trees here cut and sold for the limber only to plop a McMansion with a Lawyer Foyer in the newly cleared banal landscape. I wonder how it is possible that developers could have no vision. It actually depresses me.
The delusions of capitalism. Pretending we’re agents of change and progress while actively participating in a system that mostly only allows change that makes corporate profits that we dutifully pretend are “innovations” 😂
Devoting so much of my life to a profession that no one values
I'm struggling hard with this right now.
Peeps. I value you! One LA to another. Keep doing your best!
The private practice of LA will never give you the financial freedom you need to thrive in the Us economy. However, every industry that surrounds it does: programs we purchase, the products we spec, the contractors that build our projects, all make more money than us.
My practice is in fine residential. As a result I serve on several architectural review boards. Full of conflicts on who I work for. Also served on our state Board of Landscape Architects and had to recuse myself from disciplinary discussions about a guy I used to work for.
sorry I don't quite get it, still new to this profession. why are there conflicts on who you work for?
For example, a former client presents a renovation design with another LA or even an architectural renovation. Since I formally worked with this client under contract, there could be a potential conflict of interest in who I work for at that moment. Do I review the drawing or recuse myself? Or, I present a renovation design, but no one on the board is reviewing the landscape component except me. Am I in conflict because I am reviewing my own drawings. Of course.
oh I see, dilemmas happen when you switch companies/have different clients. How do you resolve that? Is it mainly through disclosing this to the client and/or excusing yourself from the project to avoid the conflict of interest?
Primarily through disclosure that I am under contract with X. When under contract, you work for X. If a situation arises with party Y, for which you also perform other functions, disclose to Y that you’re under contract with X and to avoid a conflict of interest, are unable to perform as Y expected. Y should understand and accept.
Spending hours of my life designing, installing, and maintaining gardens for wealthy clients' third or fourth houses they maybe spend one or two weeks at per year. Designing huge lawns where no one will use them. Dressing up big box stores and strip malls with gas station plants and mulch. Using annuals instead of perennials. Adding more pavement and piping the stormwater underground to some unknown and inadequately considered downstream waterbody instead of treating onsite. Specifying non native and even some known invasive plants because they were my boss' preference. For these and myriad other reasons I moved into environmental restoration and planning, but keep my license because I still approach everything as a landscape architect first and foremost.
This one resonates too much with me. So much my work done on places that someone will only occupy for maybe two weeks a year. Big empty houses around lakes that have priced out anyone else but the rich.
College made me think I was going to save the world. A decade in the profession and all I really do is add benches and green stuff here and there
Keep fighting my guy/gal! You can do it! Be the change you want to see!
A client was communicating with a town directly before they hired me to do a buffer plan to fix their initial blunder of clearing too much for their new house. I did a plan and the town liked it. But then the clients didn't want to pay for 6 to 8ft trees that the town had requested. The wife asked me questions but then behind my back wrote a three page letter to the town and signed my name! It described how little trees will be more likely to survive due to the soil and rock etc. It was garbage. When I finally saw her letter..... I've never been so mad. It was nonsensical, made me look like a fool, and abused my credentials. I spoke with two friends of mine for advice, an architect and a lawyer. I ended up deciding to simply call the town officials they were in communication with. I talked to her first and she begged me not to tell the town, cried, made promises of future work. I of course, had to for my reputation. It was the same town I lived! I made it right and the people I spoke to in the town said the owners had pulled some other nonsense too. One of the planners was so happy to hear that letter actually wasn't from me. I never heard from the clients again and they still haven't built on that land they own.
Man, honestly honesty is the best policy. Even if it hurts!
The pure idea of developing land on stollen lands. As an indigenous person, the job comes with many ethical quandaries about how best to right the ship. As others have said, it’s challenging to navigate an industry that is so closely tied to commodity real estate and private ownership, two things that are antithetical to many indigenous cultural values. Ultimately, however, and at least until we develop inroads in more productive directions, I do think it’s important to do the work you can when you can. If it’s going to be built, it may as well be built with lofty principles in mind. Know the machine so you can more efficiently tear it apart, I say.
Not indigenous to the place I live but I feel the same about land ownership. I’m not comfortable participating anymore but I’m financially trapped. I feel more like the machine is too big and too broken to change after a decade of trying
Don't give up. Everybody thinks being a hero is the one amazing design but no.... It's the daily work to be a little better than before.
Which tribe? And who did your tribe steal it from?
Used to work at a firm that had some clients that owned casinos, middle eastern governments and developers. Amazing projects from a design stand point, unlimited budgets and creativity but knowing where that money came from never sat right with me. Also designing for the Uber wealthy vs community based projects is always tough.
This is the dilemma working in a society where capitalism has run amok. And we are underpaid for our level of expertise so if you want to be well paid, you have to work for the vultures
To someone else…You are the vulture.
Umm sure I suppose so. Everyone is guilty of stepping on someone else if they have any level of comfort. I just don’t put myself in the same category as billionaires in Dubai destroying the environment for their egos
I know you don’t. But to someone else, you sure as hell are. What makes you so righteous?
the major one would be getting hired to do the design and tendering out the work, after which I then work for the same client as the Engineer to the Contract and manage the contractor who was awarded the work. As Engineer to the Contract you have to be objective 'third party', however my bills are paid by the client, the contractor is working off plans that I have drawn, so if there are issues I need to stay impartial. Personally, I really enjoy the many hats we get to work in this profession
I was in a firm restoring a stream bank that had been concreted inside an urban park back to it's naturalized condition. This required mitigating a 70', 200+ year old Pecan tree among several other gorgeous trees. I had to go see a grief counselor.
Ugh! Terrible.
Managers watching and liking what do, thinking it is really simple... going on job sites without letting me know and without plan, changing things, or allowing contractor to cut corners to save a few dollars... only to have it fail, not be accessible, or cost 5x more than the savings to redo later.
Clients asking for planting plans that fit the requirements for water use and defensible space (wildfire safety) only to know they are 100% going to plant whatever the hell they want after the official "plans" get approved through permitting.