Friday Chat Sessions

Look at the “Are you working or not ” discussion thread and personally contribute and update it. From an employment perspective, let people know how your thriving and/or surviving in the worst economic downturn so far in our lifetime (unless your over 80 years old).Give us some perspective as to what the economic trends and conditions are in your area/region/ corner of this country, any insights as to hiring patterns of other design firms and what your coping strategies are to get through all of this and onto the other side of daylight.

I absolutely promise a summary this month of all the entries and contributions to this discussion thread to date. I will intermingle it with other bits of data, anecdotal information and insights and reports from the various design frontiers about the very topics mentioned above. It should provide for an interesting comparison and contrast., Of equal importance will be to forward this relatively “unscientific” survey and its conclusions to the appropriate contacts at ASLA to get their reaction and even though incredibly late to this dismal party, what our leadership intends to do about the issues identified in the survey.

Your thoughts and continued contributions, please.

Ye. the first response to this chat session should be our first topic.

Has anyone found some good webinars or video pieces about village and small town design/planning?

How about a discussion on the history of our profession and its early pioneers. Ive been re-reading Design on the Land, so its a current interest.

By the way, for those of you who may not know (I didn’t), Olmsted, the son of a Connecticut merchant, dropped out of college (supposedly due to sumac poisining) and his father bought him a farm on Staten Island in 1848. He had previously been employed as a seaman, merchant, and still as a journalist, which apperantly led to his 1850 trip to England. I find this interesting because a lot of the descriptions in Walks are about farming and the English people he runs into are surprised to find an American farmer so civilized. At that time, they apparently thought we were barbarous savages or something like that. His mere visit changed some people’s view of America. His descriptions are very detailed and, as you can imagine, picturesque. Most interesting to me are his descriptions of the English rural and town landscape.

I don’t wish you any bad luck but anytime we can reduce Planning and Zoining’s work force that is a great thing!
These organizations have gotten way to big fer their britches. Maybe if they lose and additional 30% of their staff they will get down to a size where the people who are left will only have time to concentrate on what is truly important and all the other nit picky stuff will be left alone.

Through previous posts and reading, this topic has been on going since the birth of the profession. I do rely on ASLA to advocate the profession, but I also take advantage of opportunities to advertise Landscape Architecture. Everytime I am at a seminar, meeting with civil engineers or architects, I proudly announce and advertise my title. My point being that the advocacy is a team approach beginning with its practioneers and the national society. Our efforts will be rewarded through a dual approach.