As practicing landscape architects, it can be easy to feel distanced from innovation in the field. Designers outside of major metro areas – or remote from landscape architecture schools – can find it difficult to feel knowledgeable or inspired. In small firms, particularly, the resources necessary for continuing education are often difficult to justify. Fortunately, there’s been a recent movement for universities and other organizations to release online video of lectures and presentations. These lectures may not provide the social benefit of attending a conference – and you may not get an education credit, but they can be a cheap and flexible way of learning. If you’re needing some inspiration, flick over to YouTube or Vimeo. Listen to these experts. You’ll learn something. To start, here’s a quick list of 8 free online video resources for landscape architects:
Landscape Architecture Lectures, College of Environmental Design, University of California Berkeley:
An opportunity to learn from top professionals in the field without paying for the privilege? Thank the landscape gods that you were born in the internet age. Olmsted, Ferrand, and le Notre would be tumbling over themselves to have the opportunity to learn from the professionals we get an opportunity to hear via the internet. I found out about this stream when I failed to attend the 2018 Symposium on The Art of Planting Design, which featured practitioners from Mexico, Portugal, Sweden, and Australia – as well as a range of regions in the US. Even if you’re not a planting person, there are plenty of other memorable lectures here – make sure to listen to Diane Jones Allen on cultural landscapes and Nadia Amoroso on landscape representation.
Beth Chatto Symposium 2018 Recorded Lectures:
Planting designer Beth Chatto is particularly well-known in the United Kingdom, but her ecologically-driven approach has influenced planting around the world. In 2018, planting experts who work at a range of climates and scales congregated to speak about their work. Whether you design with plants on a daily basis or an occasional shrub-it-up kind of landscape architect, you’ll learn something from the fantastic panel assembled at this event.
Landscape Architecture Foundation:
If you’re at all interested in becoming a better designer, you pay attention to the Landscape Architecture Foundation’s work. Their earlier work focused on environmental sustainability, including the Case Study Investigation and the Landscape Performance Series which pioneered research on actual measurable results of design interventions. Today, LAF is beginning to broaden their scope to include equity and social justice – aspects of landscape architecture that our profession has often ignored. Give their videos a watch to learn from researchers and practitioners creating influential work. If you watch nothing else, watch the 20-minute documentary for the New Landscape Declaration.
Landscape Architecture Department Lectures, University of Washington College of Built Environments:
Did you attend lectures when you were in design school? No? You stayed in studio working on your projects? Well, make up for lost time by listening to this series of expert practitioners. UW has a really useful practice of including lectures from the entire college of the built environment in one stream. Learn from architects and planners as well as those in your own discipline. I learned about this channel through the GGN talk “Drawing What You Can’t See”, which included talks by Shannon Nichol, Keith McPeters, and David Malda. Give it a listen.
American Society of Landscape Architects:
You’re interested in landscape architecture, you know about ASLA. That’s not even up for debate. It’s the professional advocacy organization in the United States. ASLA’s YouTube channel is more scattered and clip-oriented than some of the other resources on this list, but pay particular attention to the channels on Designing for Diversity and Ask Me Anything.
American landscape architects have an unfortunate tendency to be a bit provincial about our understanding of our profession. Yes, the term “landscape architect” is an American invention. The earliest professionals (Olmsted and Vaux) to use that term and the first professional program (at Harvard) were American. But, today, there’s a vast body of landscape architectural expertise being created across the world. Take a look at the UK-based Landscape Institute YouTube channels for some great stormwater graphics and content on landscape architecture as a profession.
Public gardens are a great resource for landscape architects and planting designers. Dedicated to creating and preserving knowledge about the environment, botanical institutions are doing important work in this time of epic extinction rates and climate change. New York Botanical Garden has done fantastic work in recording the knowledge of regional experts. Explore their online content to learn more about biodiversity, plant communities, and climate resilience strategies. Don’t hesitate – while drawing out your next CAD details, listen to Charles Jenks on the Universe as Artist or Robin Wall Kimmerer and Elizabeth Gilbert on What Plants Can Teach Us.
The Cultural Landscape Foundation:
The Cultural Landscape Foundation focuses on connecting people to place. Their work protects and interprets four types of landscapes – designed, ethnographic, historic, and vernacular. As part of their interpretive work, TCLF’s YouTube channel includes oral histories of famous landscape architects, as well as conference presentations. Start with the oral history of Cornelia Hahn Oberlander, a Canadian landscape architect who has created significant landscapes throughout the US and Canada.
Land8: Landscape Architects Network has organized a series of of “lightning talks” with landscape architects presenting on the theme “Next Practices in Landscape Architecture”. The format of Land8x8 (“land-eight-by-eight”) Lightning Talks is 8 speakers for 8 minutes each. This exciting new format breaks away from traditional lectures and packs in 8 different talks in about an hour that will have you thinking and inspired about the future of landscape architecture from a variety of established and emerging leaders. Be on the lookout for 16 new talks to be published on a continuing basis starting next week.
Your firm may not be able to sponsor a trip to Hong Kong or Sydney or San Diego, where you’ll clink glasses and open your sketchbook to today’s hottest design experts. But you’re in luck. You don’t have to devote a full semester or pay tuition in order to learn from top practitioners and researchers in our field. Turn your web browser to Vimeo or YouTube, crank up your headphones, and give these online resources a listen. You’ll learn something.
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Lead Image: Caleb Melchior
