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My personal experience: I work in municipal government for a parks and recreation department where I oversee planning, design, and construction administration for all capital improvement projects in the city’s park system. I collaborate daily with planners, engineers, architects, attorneys, etc., both inside the organization and as consultants. As…[Read more]

The individual I wrote about had the same goal. You can pick up the business side as you go or with an MBA. Personally I think there’s a lot to be learned from the trenches, whether you’re working directly for or consulting with a developer.

This is a very ignorant statement you’ve made here. Sure, being in some arch or eng firms aren’t always the  most glamorous types of work for an LA, but if you are into the planning end of things it can be ideal. And it certainly raises the profile of the LA profession if you are ambitious and push yourself within these firms. Besides, if an ar…[Read more]

I think what you said make a lot of sense. Thank you very much for giving the reality of LA in those firms.

In fact, I would like to see the opportunity working in a developer firms, not only in Architecture or Landscape Architecture or Planning driven company. Thank you for the advice.

Actually, that’s what I’m interested. I wonder if I can work for developer firms and later became one of them as developer/investor. The problem is I don’t have business background. I’m curious how should I start this career. Of course, I will not have problem to work as designer as well.

If you want to be involved in the building of spaces, it’s good to be licensed in that it demonstrates to clients that you have at least a minimum competency in the field to maintain public health, safety and welfare.  It’s becoming increasingly difficult to do design and build without a license.
If you are a stellar designer and can find a…[Read more]

You can’t lock the workstation, but they’ll let you install programs to it?
The first problem I see with your current tool, in the minute I spent looking at the link, is that I don’t see any real security there.  My system is set to show hidden folders, so flagging one as hidden will do nothing for you.  Also, it does not appear to provide any e…[Read more]

To answer your question from my experience, land developers and commercial builders sometimes hire landscape architects, planners, architects, and civil engineers to work for them as salaried employees. These folks oversee projects and act as an entitlement manager rather than do much design. Occasionally they will work up an in-house concept…[Read more]

To answer your question from my experience, land developers and commercial builders sometimes hire landscape architects, planners, architects, and civil engineers to work for them as salaried employees. These folks oversee projects and act as an entitlement manager rather than do much design. Occasionally they will work up an in-house concept…[Read more]

Both universities I went to had at least one CAD class. After those classes, there was no requirement to use the skills you learned there, though. My CAD skills faded after that one class at the University of Wisconsin, because, given the choice, I used hand graphics. It wasn’t until I was working that I realized what a mistake it was to let those…[Read more]

CLARB has a list of their pass/fail rates for the last couple of sessions up.
https://www.clarb.org/Candidates/Pages/PassRates.aspx

They’re all set up to gain public trust and ensure some level of consistent ‘minimal knowledge’ across the board.  This is true for all professions (law/medicine/engineering/architecture). 
The LARE process is, in my opinion, easy – in comparison to other related fields.  The tests are straight forward (esp compared to the PE) and as is record of…[Read more]

Fortunately or unfortunately depending how you look at it, our profession requires apprentice work (internship, whatever you want to call it) in most states. The good part of that is that is the experienced gained. The bad part is that it relies on limited opportunities. Many of those opportunities are to fill voids in production. While there may…[Read more]

Why would I have a problem with a corporation based solely on profiting off of us and not promoting the profession?  I think it is awesome.

Is there any part of the licensure process that is not ridiculous and stupid?

Yup, sorry I answered your rant, just meant to make a general comment. Anyways, autocad and other programs are just production tools, to each his/her own preferences. Why should they be taught at schools when there is such a wide array of suitable softwares, and some professionals won’t ever have to touch them ?
School for architects is a place to…[Read more]

I worked for a commercial real estate developer for a while I really liked the job. Depending on how the company works, you are very often the client, so you have a great deal of decision making power you will never get at a LA firm. The second most “powerful” LA employment is generally in architect’s offices, as they are pretty much always the le…[Read more]