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I was in school, but also working for several firms. i always received positive feedback on my work from instructors, other students, and prospective employers. it could be said that i had a very strong portfolio, coupled with solid work experience–all before graduation.

i watched as students from the class ahead of me get picked up by firms all…[Read more]

I remember clients sending us blank checks to move their projects to the front burner (not often, but it happened).  Every firm was rolling in work and clients were spending quite liberally and allowing firms to charge a decent rate for fees (10~15% for institutional/commercial vs 3~7% that is more common now).  Jobs were easy to come by, and p…[Read more]

Might help you understand ‘what the profession was like’ in terms of job security and pay if you had some numbers. I’ve been through three economic ‘events’: the first when I came out of school in 1991; the second in 2001; and the Big Kahuna in 2008. Averaged this works out to one event every eight years. Except for the Big Kahuna, I suspect the…[Read more]

High Line (and Brookyln Bridge Park for that matter) seems to have an excessive cost attached to maintenance in comparison to others in the city.  vertical landscapes still haven’t seem to have gotten to a point where there’s a good return on investment.  I suppose schools often encourage pushing the boundaries and hence the discussion of some o…[Read more]

seconded – i’d say it’s a lot easier than a lot of them out there.

vray is the best, longer learning curve though..

See comment above ….
Where I stated my point.

Some is good…that was not my point.

Which are good and why?

Just asking…..

You appear to be making a point of some sort rather than posing a question. What then is your point?

The Government will rescue us……

Your statement, not mine. Whether the cost of maintenance is born by Government (is that something other than the Public?) or a…[Read more]

If I understand the point of your question is what 3D design software is compatible with CAD (guessing AutoCAD) and other illustrative or design software?
Well you could go with SketchUp, which is widely used in our profession for its ease of use and short learning curve. The resulting models, with a third party rendering too like Vray or Maxwell…[Read more]

The Government will rescue us……
Labor intensive maintenance still does not sound very practical to me, which was my original point.

Well I was not thinking of it as “make work”, simply recognizing what the actual resource required is (labor). The argument “Who will maintain it when the city goes broke?” applies to everything, doesn’t it? New construction? Extended subway line? Streets? It cannot be a reason not to create green space.What are the alternatives? Hardscape for…[Read more]

Some is good…that was not my point.
Make work projects are not my idea of something sustainable.
When other peoples money runs out, then what?
Who will maintain it when the city goes broke?

The primary maintenance is skilled labor. And we need jobs for people (with th rate of human population growth and automation we face a growing problem of What are people supposed to do to support themselves?) So greening sites and as a result creating employment opportunities seems eminently sustainable to me.  If we are to have plantlife then…[Read more]

Well not all type of artificial landscape is bad.

Well your full details is really good. I thin landscape is the good one.

Thanks for posting Mark.
It does look a bit lame to me too…
Is this supposed to be an example of good design?

Despite what some here might say, sketchup is plenty powerful and combined with a robust render engine like vray can produce very nice renders, comparable to much more complex programs like max or rhino. There are a couple downsides, namely;

1. file size limitation (most sketchup files will start crashing consistently around 100mb with a pretty…[Read more]

My former employer bought an HP T3500 with color scanner a couple of months ago. I’m not sure what he paid for it, but he is very happy with the results from the scanner. I looked at some fine lined color maps that he had printed and was impressed.

hp makes the most reliable large format printers….my opinion since the 80’s…