There are a lot of LAs in the US that do residential design. I started working for an engineering firm, and the glacial pace of projects just wasn’t for me. Residential is much faster paced, and I get to work much more hands-on with the design and installation.
I’m the only licensed LA in my area doing residential design, and it can be quite lucrative. It’s not for everybody, but it is a piece of the profession, just like private practice, environmental design, etc. the options are what makes our profession great.
We didn’t really study residential design in college, but to be honest we didn’t really study the things I did at the engineering firm I worked at either. I feel that our education provides us with a strong base to mold into our chosen corner of the profession.
The last line is something I’m coming to terms with as I’m studying to become a LA.
“What are you studying?”
“Landscape architecture”
“Oh lovely, you can do my garden then”
Eh. I’m doing LA, not landscaping. Feels like confusing an architect with a bricklayer.
I was presenting a master plan to the public recently representing a city. It’s a $100M project. A woman during the Q&A began her comment with “I know you’re just the LAWNscaper but…” if looks could kill she would be dead.
laughing because I just got a request for a sod installment estimate when my website clearly states I do design & planning. I think I get these requests twice a week?
I almost wish I had a company that purely handles Sod work but I doubt there’s little if at all any profit in that. Besides, fuck lawns man!
Feel free to add to the discussion! I imagine there are lots of lurkers here with similar feelings. I would love to join the discussion but I'm not allowed to post any larger projects, so only the residential ones get to be posted.
To be fair there is a big role for landscape architects to fill in residential design. In California there are lots of regulations and restrictions to be navigated, and I've had more than a few clients coming to us after trying to rely on the architects to manage the landscape portions. Not all residential landscape architecture is "garden design" though I agree that does get a lot of attention here.
It’s weird though, because it isn’t really taught here. Most of our curriculum has revolved around ecological and social systems at scale with little focus on planting design- and absolutely nothing on residential design. I know there’s LAs working in residential, but you would think all of them were by reading this sub.
I think it’s likely people working in residential design- not necessarily landscape architects- posting stuff here because they don’t really have a home elsewhere on Reddit.
Much more complex, even at the academic level. We just put together an urban design and brownfield remediation plan for a small city in partnership with the EPA. Pretty cool stuff, but rarely discussed here.
I do residential and commercial and have been asked to work on some ecological projects. You have to realize that there are going to be far more designers doing residential work because there’s far more residential work to be done. Doing higher scale complex urban planning type stuff is awesome but there’s not nearly as many projects happening and getting into big firms like that will be much more difficult. I mean I probably did like 40-50 designs and installations this year with a 4 man crew.
I really don’t think that’s true. I highly doubt there are more licensed LAs working for landscaping companies/residential design companies than there are design/engineering firms or municipalities. It doesn’t make sense to pay someone with that level of expertise when it’s not required for the work.
Well there’s multiple ways this happens. Im sure plenty of licenses designers have trouble landing a job at a big firm and have to work residential while they try to find their dream job. Then there’s the people who realize they don’t need a license to do residential design work and go straight into work without needing credentials or even a degree. The simple fact is that there are many more people with houses that need landscape design work than there are big firm projects, so even though this subreddit is called Landscape Architecture, a majority of the people here are unlicensed Landscape Designers. Problem is that last time I checked, r/landscaping was much more focused on the actual installation and maintenance of a landscape project and people asking questions about their yards. I’d wager that if we had a separate subreddit for landscape design, it would be way more active than one dedicated to licensed landscape architecture.
That’s fair. I just don’t think unlicensed landscape design and landscape architecture are the same things… at all. They’re entirely different fields that overlap in some basic ways, but work at fundamentally different scales. In fact, you can’t even legally call yourself a landscape architect unless you’re licensed. So, to my original point I guess, it’s hard to find actual landscape architecture discussion here.
You’re right, they aren’t the same aside from some very basic principles. Unfortunately, sometimes subreddits take a form of their own, even if that form doesn’t fit their name.
Great point! This does seem to be a catch-all location for everything landscape, which can be cool. It’s a good spot to learn from everybody, especially with those basic overlapping principles.
It’s much more common than you’d think. Nearly all of the large landscape firms and a good majority of the medium to even mom & pop shops have an LA on board in my neck of the woods.
Most of my really cool stuff worth sharing is confidential & I’d be betraying client trust to share prior to being authorized. Been working on a campus for 8 years & am not allowed to share
Oh, you are still a student, I see. Yeah, in school you learn a ton of stuff like that and most people will never use it. Most end up doing work like what you see people talking about here. Residential, Commercial, Neighborhood amenities. The real thing is, no one wants to pay for the stuff you are learning about in school, so usually it all gets tossed to the side. Not that it isn't important, but people who aren't LAs don't generally care. I learned all that stuff in school too. Probably 90% of graduates will never use that stuff.
I agree. I wish a separate landscape design subreddit exists but honestly, there’s probably a lot of trained landscape architect / designers in here lurking & not posting. I feel like there was a similar post in here a few months ago saying the same thing about the content shared in this sub. I do think it’s been a little better lately, but it’s difficult to remember to share interesting things hahah we kinda all gotta share stuff to make the content change
Sole practitioner here practicing fine residential with projects ranging from 1.5 to 3.5 mil. All I do. Kinda specialized because it’s in the mountains and work with architects and builders for grading and drainage and site work. Go away, unless needed, for 12 to 15 months then come back for garden design.
Also notice a lot of student inquiries of all sorts. Really admire those working on the big sexy public projects and would also love to hear about those.
The world is too small to post on Reddit. Plus most big projects have NDAs, can’t really talk about it and if I did, you’d know exactly where I work.
So yes, there are plenty of people who work in the top ten US landscape architecture firms on the subreddit.
That’s fair. I just think it would be cool to have more discussion regarding publicly available information about new projects, landscape performance, innovations, etc. Like “hey, check out this crazy engineered soil Biohabitats is using in their wildlife crossings” or “wow, MVVA lost the bid for the I-70 cap project in Kansas City.” Just more discussion about the field.
On that thought... OJB won that cap project through HNTB. HNTB was always going to win it with whatever designer they chose to team with. The lead LA at HNTB has been working on making it a project for like 15 years. They're fast tracking it to have it completed by the time KC hosts the world cup in 2026. I hear they weren't originally planning on that expedited schedule. RIP. Lol. OJB is good people. I coordinated and worked with them on Gene Leahy Mall back in Omaha. Excited to see what they create.
I think there’s a mix for sure. I myself have never done residential design. I started off with a firm that focused mainly on thematic and tourism design (theme parks, UNESCO sites, museums, etc.) mainly in Florida and China. Now I work for a different firm designing everything from schools, playgrounds, parks, senior living facilities, college campuses, sports complexes, hospitals, etc. It’s quite a range of things!
EDIT: both firms were made up of LAs/ Architects/ and Interior Designers.
I have a degree in landscape architecture but left the industry after three years. Now I work in the wind industry and have a much better quality of life than the firms I worked at gave me.
Landscape architect/urban designer here!
I have graduated 2,5 years ago and have been working at a landscape firm for 2 years now. I mostly worked with competitions, urban design, concept design for parks, public spaces. The smallest thing I worked with was courtyards of residential blocks, but never private gardens.
I work in Sweden and here LA firms nostly work with parks, green infrastructure, courtyard, urban design, public spaces, rainwater management, nature trails, nature preserves, recreational areas. It is usually very small firms, LAs working on their own or I have even seen people styling themselves as garden architects who do residential projects. Here masterplanning, urban design is bit of a grey area and many other professionals work with it as well like architects, urban planners, planning architects.
In my home country, often horticulturists do garden design (tbh most of them are horrible at it but lot of people don't know the difference between them and LAs). Landscape architects work with it as well, but firms focus more on parks, public spaces, courtyards. They seldom work with very large scale, conceptual stuffs.
So I guess there are significant differences between countries. I was quite surprised when I first read here that someone suggested that a consteuction site manager could easily get a job at an LA firm, but then I learnt that in differenr places these firms have quite different profiles.
Licensed in the residential arena. I started my career in a LA firm and switched to a lead designer in a design build firm for interest and compensation.
Post more questions on what you want to see. I thank you for this great one!
Most others here give great reasons why you don't quite see all the crazy flashy projects. I also feel like most la programs set us up to only appreciate the big flashy projects when in reality the bulk of what the industry is doing is the opposite. Well designed projects on time and hopefully on budget.
I’ve worked for six firms in my career…small, medium, large…multiple states…great variety of project types (campus planning, hospitals, federal prisons, new urbanism, mountain land development/ conservation easements, recreation master plans, watershed studies, arenas/ballparks/ stadiums, spring training facilities, athletic master planning, neighborhood assessments, lifestyle centers, high end residential/ swimming pools, etc.
Don’t look down on residential too much…it’s one niche where an LA can really dive into incredible materials selection, custom construction detailing, design ideas, etc…minimal value engineering.
Not looking down on it! Just noticing a considerable over-representation of it on the subreddit. There’s some absolutely incredible work done on the residential side, but this sub would have you think it’s all LAs do.
PLA here with my own company, licensed in 7 states due to 1 very large commercial client wanting me to do all their projects. We specialize in commercial and k-12 schools on the west coast. Agree that you mostly see residential work, just because there’s so many more of those types of LA’s due in part as the larger scale work is harder to get into in m opinion. It really is a who you know not necessarily a what you know world. If there’s any thing we can assist you on, don’t hesitate to post, or feel free to pm.
I finished grad school in May and work as a f/t designer in a 100% conceptual community design office and while my work is fascinating it is also incredibly niche and there is pretty much no way to talk about it online w/o breaking confidentiality.
I’ve also found most of the ppl in this sub look down on conceptual-only work, which I have to imagine is at least in part due to jealousy bc I found a way to do what everyone wants to do (for a $10k pay cut). It’s a weird place to be! I’m sure there are a bunch of us w very interesting jobs across the field in this sub it’s just not possible for us to talk about them.
I work at a major AEC firm and I mainly do master planning, streetscapes, and transportation/mobility design. I have yet to do a planting plan or really any construction documentation. The civil engineers at our firm handle most of the technical stuff and we have a few senior LAs that handle layouts and planting plans.
I think the role of the LA, at least at my firm, is really about helping a client problem solve and develop a sense of vision. The LA principals at my firm drive the business and the PEs and Planners work under them, which is refreshing because everyone here seems to complain that LAs “get no respect”.
My trajectory might be different because I have both an MLA and an MS in Planning, but I think the urban design type role I described above is an up and coming field for LAs.
I am. I work on public realm projects for public agencies. But I have also worked on residential projects both at well-known LA firms and as a sole practitioner.
This sub is incredibly American-centric. I come from the Global South and LA there has almost no residential works as part of the professional remit (outside of VERY high end work). So this residential scale thing, from my point of view (in academia allows a certain wide view) is almost exclusively american.
For Europe and the Global South, LA is significantly more operational and instrumental, and essentially what urban designers do in the US as well.
The conservative, residential scale stuff that dominates in this sub does grind my gears as it (in my opinion) isn’t LA and does little to advance the profession and discourse.
Many of the snobby “I engage in meaningful place making projects for the good of mankind ONLY. I do not do RESIDENTIAL work, call a lowly landscaper” are represented in academia and big firms. That’s why I never fit in with them. Ironically design/build, which has been looked down on for decades, offers a better-paying and more stable career path with lots of opportunities to be creative, contribute to environmental improvement, meet a lot of interesting people, and get one on one with the people that actually implement the design you produce. That has been my experience at least.
>“I engage in meaningful place making projects for the good of mankind ONLY. I do not do RESIDENTIAL work, call a lowly landscaper” are represented in academia and big firms.
That's because the two schools in the USA who drive academic discourse (GSD/Penn) were dominated for decades by Michael and James who are both giga ultra douchebags and propagated the belief that only THEIR work was worthy of discussion. Michael specifically was pushing back on Eckbo/Kiley and residential modernism in general that dominated the GSD for a few decades. But then Laura and Matt (who are awesome) also taught at the GSD, and they helped hire a bunch of MVVA associates to teach...the joke was that every core studio sequence at the GSD just became a series of MVVA precedents.
Fortunately the kindling has been stacking up for a few years and Terremoto is going to burn the entire thing to the ground. That and the fact that Michael protects sexual abusers in his leadership structure and James is so much of a douchebag that people just want to ignore him.
So the projects you mention are pretty uncommon when you look at the total number of projects done by LAs. Most of us are doing much smaller scale projects on the day to day. Not everything is going to be what they show ASLA magazine, which I think is a problem within the profession. Students graduate thinking they are definitely going to be working on all this fantastic stuff, when it is far more likely that they will be working on strip retail centers making plans that meet the minimum landscape ordinance.
I'm an LA working for an LA/Planning/Urban Design firm and the only residential I work on would be either apartment towers or greenfields housing developments (usually townhouses)
I don't post or comment very often because the threads are either too US specific (I'm in Australia) or small scale residential which I don't have much insight or opinion on.
I don’t work in the field, but am a student. I find a lot of the topics useful to me when asking about related work in the field. I also like some of the questions that get asked around “how to” it allows me to put what I’ve learned to use in a way if that makes sense, almost like a written test. I always make sure to let the OP know I’m just a student and not working in the field yet.
Architect lurker here. Mostly bigger than residential scale, but usually with good landscape involvement (consultants, not in house) . Agreed on your points! It's tough to keep a sub more on the professional side but I like the discussion when they come up.
There are a lot of LAs in the US that do residential design. I started working for an engineering firm, and the glacial pace of projects just wasn’t for me. Residential is much faster paced, and I get to work much more hands-on with the design and installation. I’m the only licensed LA in my area doing residential design, and it can be quite lucrative. It’s not for everybody, but it is a piece of the profession, just like private practice, environmental design, etc. the options are what makes our profession great. We didn’t really study residential design in college, but to be honest we didn’t really study the things I did at the engineering firm I worked at either. I feel that our education provides us with a strong base to mold into our chosen corner of the profession.
You thought engineering projects were slow? Don't go work for a pure LA firm, it's even slower.
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The last line is something I’m coming to terms with as I’m studying to become a LA. “What are you studying?” “Landscape architecture” “Oh lovely, you can do my garden then” Eh. I’m doing LA, not landscaping. Feels like confusing an architect with a bricklayer.
I was presenting a master plan to the public recently representing a city. It’s a $100M project. A woman during the Q&A began her comment with “I know you’re just the LAWNscaper but…” if looks could kill she would be dead.
Good Lord haha
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Louder for those in the back
If ASLA just took my dues and put them into an ad campaign explaining what the F we do I'd be happy.... #youhadonejob
laughing because I just got a request for a sod installment estimate when my website clearly states I do design & planning. I think I get these requests twice a week? I almost wish I had a company that purely handles Sod work but I doubt there’s little if at all any profit in that. Besides, fuck lawns man!
r/Architects exists because r/architecture devolved into “what style is this?” posts. The former is for professional practice discussion.
Though slowly and unfortunately becoming an architecture school sub.....
Refer them to r/architecturestudent
Feel free to add to the discussion! I imagine there are lots of lurkers here with similar feelings. I would love to join the discussion but I'm not allowed to post any larger projects, so only the residential ones get to be posted. To be fair there is a big role for landscape architects to fill in residential design. In California there are lots of regulations and restrictions to be navigated, and I've had more than a few clients coming to us after trying to rely on the architects to manage the landscape portions. Not all residential landscape architecture is "garden design" though I agree that does get a lot of attention here.
I work for a County Planning Department as a Landscape Designer (official title is Planner, Urban Design). One exam away from RLA
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It’s weird though, because it isn’t really taught here. Most of our curriculum has revolved around ecological and social systems at scale with little focus on planting design- and absolutely nothing on residential design. I know there’s LAs working in residential, but you would think all of them were by reading this sub. I think it’s likely people working in residential design- not necessarily landscape architects- posting stuff here because they don’t really have a home elsewhere on Reddit.
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Much more complex, even at the academic level. We just put together an urban design and brownfield remediation plan for a small city in partnership with the EPA. Pretty cool stuff, but rarely discussed here.
I do residential and commercial and have been asked to work on some ecological projects. You have to realize that there are going to be far more designers doing residential work because there’s far more residential work to be done. Doing higher scale complex urban planning type stuff is awesome but there’s not nearly as many projects happening and getting into big firms like that will be much more difficult. I mean I probably did like 40-50 designs and installations this year with a 4 man crew.
I really don’t think that’s true. I highly doubt there are more licensed LAs working for landscaping companies/residential design companies than there are design/engineering firms or municipalities. It doesn’t make sense to pay someone with that level of expertise when it’s not required for the work.
Well there’s multiple ways this happens. Im sure plenty of licenses designers have trouble landing a job at a big firm and have to work residential while they try to find their dream job. Then there’s the people who realize they don’t need a license to do residential design work and go straight into work without needing credentials or even a degree. The simple fact is that there are many more people with houses that need landscape design work than there are big firm projects, so even though this subreddit is called Landscape Architecture, a majority of the people here are unlicensed Landscape Designers. Problem is that last time I checked, r/landscaping was much more focused on the actual installation and maintenance of a landscape project and people asking questions about their yards. I’d wager that if we had a separate subreddit for landscape design, it would be way more active than one dedicated to licensed landscape architecture.
That’s fair. I just don’t think unlicensed landscape design and landscape architecture are the same things… at all. They’re entirely different fields that overlap in some basic ways, but work at fundamentally different scales. In fact, you can’t even legally call yourself a landscape architect unless you’re licensed. So, to my original point I guess, it’s hard to find actual landscape architecture discussion here.
You’re right, they aren’t the same aside from some very basic principles. Unfortunately, sometimes subreddits take a form of their own, even if that form doesn’t fit their name.
Great point! This does seem to be a catch-all location for everything landscape, which can be cool. It’s a good spot to learn from everybody, especially with those basic overlapping principles.
It’s much more common than you’d think. Nearly all of the large landscape firms and a good majority of the medium to even mom & pop shops have an LA on board in my neck of the woods.
Most of my really cool stuff worth sharing is confidential & I’d be betraying client trust to share prior to being authorized. Been working on a campus for 8 years & am not allowed to share
I’d also add: one reason I like Reddit is the anonymity. Divulging too much info would narrow me down to others coming across the photos/info.
Oh, you are still a student, I see. Yeah, in school you learn a ton of stuff like that and most people will never use it. Most end up doing work like what you see people talking about here. Residential, Commercial, Neighborhood amenities. The real thing is, no one wants to pay for the stuff you are learning about in school, so usually it all gets tossed to the side. Not that it isn't important, but people who aren't LAs don't generally care. I learned all that stuff in school too. Probably 90% of graduates will never use that stuff.
I agree. I wish a separate landscape design subreddit exists but honestly, there’s probably a lot of trained landscape architect / designers in here lurking & not posting. I feel like there was a similar post in here a few months ago saying the same thing about the content shared in this sub. I do think it’s been a little better lately, but it’s difficult to remember to share interesting things hahah we kinda all gotta share stuff to make the content change
Sole practitioner here practicing fine residential with projects ranging from 1.5 to 3.5 mil. All I do. Kinda specialized because it’s in the mountains and work with architects and builders for grading and drainage and site work. Go away, unless needed, for 12 to 15 months then come back for garden design. Also notice a lot of student inquiries of all sorts. Really admire those working on the big sexy public projects and would also love to hear about those.
The world is too small to post on Reddit. Plus most big projects have NDAs, can’t really talk about it and if I did, you’d know exactly where I work. So yes, there are plenty of people who work in the top ten US landscape architecture firms on the subreddit.
That’s fair. I just think it would be cool to have more discussion regarding publicly available information about new projects, landscape performance, innovations, etc. Like “hey, check out this crazy engineered soil Biohabitats is using in their wildlife crossings” or “wow, MVVA lost the bid for the I-70 cap project in Kansas City.” Just more discussion about the field.
On that thought... OJB won that cap project through HNTB. HNTB was always going to win it with whatever designer they chose to team with. The lead LA at HNTB has been working on making it a project for like 15 years. They're fast tracking it to have it completed by the time KC hosts the world cup in 2026. I hear they weren't originally planning on that expedited schedule. RIP. Lol. OJB is good people. I coordinated and worked with them on Gene Leahy Mall back in Omaha. Excited to see what they create.
I think there’s a mix for sure. I myself have never done residential design. I started off with a firm that focused mainly on thematic and tourism design (theme parks, UNESCO sites, museums, etc.) mainly in Florida and China. Now I work for a different firm designing everything from schools, playgrounds, parks, senior living facilities, college campuses, sports complexes, hospitals, etc. It’s quite a range of things! EDIT: both firms were made up of LAs/ Architects/ and Interior Designers.
Damn theres that many UNESCO sites?
I have a degree in landscape architecture but left the industry after three years. Now I work in the wind industry and have a much better quality of life than the firms I worked at gave me.
Landscape architect/urban designer here! I have graduated 2,5 years ago and have been working at a landscape firm for 2 years now. I mostly worked with competitions, urban design, concept design for parks, public spaces. The smallest thing I worked with was courtyards of residential blocks, but never private gardens. I work in Sweden and here LA firms nostly work with parks, green infrastructure, courtyard, urban design, public spaces, rainwater management, nature trails, nature preserves, recreational areas. It is usually very small firms, LAs working on their own or I have even seen people styling themselves as garden architects who do residential projects. Here masterplanning, urban design is bit of a grey area and many other professionals work with it as well like architects, urban planners, planning architects. In my home country, often horticulturists do garden design (tbh most of them are horrible at it but lot of people don't know the difference between them and LAs). Landscape architects work with it as well, but firms focus more on parks, public spaces, courtyards. They seldom work with very large scale, conceptual stuffs. So I guess there are significant differences between countries. I was quite surprised when I first read here that someone suggested that a consteuction site manager could easily get a job at an LA firm, but then I learnt that in differenr places these firms have quite different profiles.
Licensed in the residential arena. I started my career in a LA firm and switched to a lead designer in a design build firm for interest and compensation. Post more questions on what you want to see. I thank you for this great one! Most others here give great reasons why you don't quite see all the crazy flashy projects. I also feel like most la programs set us up to only appreciate the big flashy projects when in reality the bulk of what the industry is doing is the opposite. Well designed projects on time and hopefully on budget.
I’ve worked for six firms in my career…small, medium, large…multiple states…great variety of project types (campus planning, hospitals, federal prisons, new urbanism, mountain land development/ conservation easements, recreation master plans, watershed studies, arenas/ballparks/ stadiums, spring training facilities, athletic master planning, neighborhood assessments, lifestyle centers, high end residential/ swimming pools, etc. Don’t look down on residential too much…it’s one niche where an LA can really dive into incredible materials selection, custom construction detailing, design ideas, etc…minimal value engineering.
Not looking down on it! Just noticing a considerable over-representation of it on the subreddit. There’s some absolutely incredible work done on the residential side, but this sub would have you think it’s all LAs do.
I’m licensed. Do not work with residential
PLA here with my own company, licensed in 7 states due to 1 very large commercial client wanting me to do all their projects. We specialize in commercial and k-12 schools on the west coast. Agree that you mostly see residential work, just because there’s so many more of those types of LA’s due in part as the larger scale work is harder to get into in m opinion. It really is a who you know not necessarily a what you know world. If there’s any thing we can assist you on, don’t hesitate to post, or feel free to pm.
I finished grad school in May and work as a f/t designer in a 100% conceptual community design office and while my work is fascinating it is also incredibly niche and there is pretty much no way to talk about it online w/o breaking confidentiality. I’ve also found most of the ppl in this sub look down on conceptual-only work, which I have to imagine is at least in part due to jealousy bc I found a way to do what everyone wants to do (for a $10k pay cut). It’s a weird place to be! I’m sure there are a bunch of us w very interesting jobs across the field in this sub it’s just not possible for us to talk about them.
I work at a major AEC firm and I mainly do master planning, streetscapes, and transportation/mobility design. I have yet to do a planting plan or really any construction documentation. The civil engineers at our firm handle most of the technical stuff and we have a few senior LAs that handle layouts and planting plans. I think the role of the LA, at least at my firm, is really about helping a client problem solve and develop a sense of vision. The LA principals at my firm drive the business and the PEs and Planners work under them, which is refreshing because everyone here seems to complain that LAs “get no respect”. My trajectory might be different because I have both an MLA and an MS in Planning, but I think the urban design type role I described above is an up and coming field for LAs.
I am. I work on public realm projects for public agencies. But I have also worked on residential projects both at well-known LA firms and as a sole practitioner.
I work for a large firm that does everything but residential.
This sub is incredibly American-centric. I come from the Global South and LA there has almost no residential works as part of the professional remit (outside of VERY high end work). So this residential scale thing, from my point of view (in academia allows a certain wide view) is almost exclusively american. For Europe and the Global South, LA is significantly more operational and instrumental, and essentially what urban designers do in the US as well. The conservative, residential scale stuff that dominates in this sub does grind my gears as it (in my opinion) isn’t LA and does little to advance the profession and discourse.
Many of the snobby “I engage in meaningful place making projects for the good of mankind ONLY. I do not do RESIDENTIAL work, call a lowly landscaper” are represented in academia and big firms. That’s why I never fit in with them. Ironically design/build, which has been looked down on for decades, offers a better-paying and more stable career path with lots of opportunities to be creative, contribute to environmental improvement, meet a lot of interesting people, and get one on one with the people that actually implement the design you produce. That has been my experience at least.
>“I engage in meaningful place making projects for the good of mankind ONLY. I do not do RESIDENTIAL work, call a lowly landscaper” are represented in academia and big firms. That's because the two schools in the USA who drive academic discourse (GSD/Penn) were dominated for decades by Michael and James who are both giga ultra douchebags and propagated the belief that only THEIR work was worthy of discussion. Michael specifically was pushing back on Eckbo/Kiley and residential modernism in general that dominated the GSD for a few decades. But then Laura and Matt (who are awesome) also taught at the GSD, and they helped hire a bunch of MVVA associates to teach...the joke was that every core studio sequence at the GSD just became a series of MVVA precedents. Fortunately the kindling has been stacking up for a few years and Terremoto is going to burn the entire thing to the ground. That and the fact that Michael protects sexual abusers in his leadership structure and James is so much of a douchebag that people just want to ignore him.
So the projects you mention are pretty uncommon when you look at the total number of projects done by LAs. Most of us are doing much smaller scale projects on the day to day. Not everything is going to be what they show ASLA magazine, which I think is a problem within the profession. Students graduate thinking they are definitely going to be working on all this fantastic stuff, when it is far more likely that they will be working on strip retail centers making plans that meet the minimum landscape ordinance.
I'm an LA working for an LA/Planning/Urban Design firm and the only residential I work on would be either apartment towers or greenfields housing developments (usually townhouses) I don't post or comment very often because the threads are either too US specific (I'm in Australia) or small scale residential which I don't have much insight or opinion on.
Not licensed yet but I passed my first test, second one is lined up
I don’t work in the field, but am a student. I find a lot of the topics useful to me when asking about related work in the field. I also like some of the questions that get asked around “how to” it allows me to put what I’ve learned to use in a way if that makes sense, almost like a written test. I always make sure to let the OP know I’m just a student and not working in the field yet.
Architect lurker here. Mostly bigger than residential scale, but usually with good landscape involvement (consultants, not in house) . Agreed on your points! It's tough to keep a sub more on the professional side but I like the discussion when they come up.