Your answer makes my point, Mr. Trojanowski..We are, as a profession, limited by our imaginations. Architects are trying to make buildings that work like cells, David Bryne  is using buildings for musical instruments, and all we can think of is to  make the swales in the parking lot bio-retentive..We need to open our minds and seize the frontlines of environmentalism. But half of the LA’s don’t even want to build to LEED standards.. And Harvard has come up with some silly contortion about ecological urbanism, which seems like the same old McHarg stuff to me..There seems to be so much room for new synthesis, instead of for old bio-swales..

what the heck is ‘Building Architects’ , Zach? And you seem insulated by your choice of location for graduate school..At UPenn, we had all working LA’s as design studio masters, and the whole program revolved around design studios..No ‘senior  thesis’ – someone asked me about that the other day..What the heck is that? But I am surprised – my impression of Arizona is that it is very forward in the design department..

When I was at school, I had as studio masters John Coe (zoos), John Hanna (Hanna Olin), (he’s dead…he smoked over your drawings..) Ed Bye, Andropoggon (still kicking), – all these people were working LA;’s, …Why is your schooling so focused on the dead?  

There are many LA’s working and trying hard to innovate….

Kongjian Yu at Turenscape & Adrian Geuze at West 8 would be worthwhile to look into.  Not just because of their ‘design’ work, but also for their understanding of what the built work can do socially, politically and culturally.  I admire them for taking a deep interest in the relationship of the culture they live in with the built and unbuilt environment around them.  Kongjian speaks of our work as the “art of survival” and the need for designers to help us understand how we ought to live with the natural processes around us and understand it in a haptic and communal manner.

Another writer I enjoy is Randy Hester, his book “Design fro Ecological Democracy’ is worth reading.

The engrained professional culture of ‘building architecture’ is an inward and self-referential one and the “outside-the-box” designers stand out as an anomaly, being able to market themselves as “pushing the boundary.”  Never mind that responsible design in all likelihood would meet LEED standards.

In contrast LArch has always borrowed heavily in theory and science from related fields (land art, field ecology, environmental engineering, biology, hydrology, cartography, etc) and so the fashionable design topic of the day may be less ‘new’ or ‘exciting.’  Let’s face it LEED and even SS is not that groundbreaking.  A more thorough understanding of precedents could help the education of new designers while helping understand the continued discourse in landscape design.  Hearing of “green infrastructure” as the future from my colleagues in civil engineering who fail to recognize Olmsted’s work or the “reclaim industrial landscapes” folks not acknowledging PArc des Buttes Chaumont is depressing.

One thing I loved about our graduate program was that the conversation and joint studios with architectural historians, ‘building architects,’ planners and landscape architects with the occasional refugee from env sci and engineering taught us to appreciate the contributions each field makes to understanding and constructing the built environment (then we graduate and learn all over about budgets and contractors…).

to the list of the honored dead add Smithson.  read Smithson.

Yeah, I know..he was one of my faves..Despite his somewhat ‘flim-flam’ man overtalking of his projects, but they were still beautiful designs and drawings..and landscapes..

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