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Always enjoy a lengthy Les Ballard response!  Ever considered doing a book?  The Muslim influence on external aesthetics hadn’t occured to me, but I see your point.  The few halal butchers I’ve seen in New Jersey maintain shops reminiscent of Communist Russia in their spareness and low-budget furnishing.
 
Due to the foreclosure crisis, the US is…[Read more]

The Islamic tradition is to have cool courtyards away from prying eyes just as their art escapes human forms yet embraces mathematical patterns.  When given a chance to start afresh and with money no object, you get places like the Alhambra Palace in Spain.  When the area has to grow organically, in the heat and the dust, the wind and the dirt o…[Read more]

and they also address ‘feel’  – I am thinking of the required setbacks for tall buidlings in NY, because of a percieved need to present less density for human health.
They also address smell- you can’t’ locate a dump in a residential neighborhood, Southampton even required plans for horse farms to address the placement of the manure pit..
I have…[Read more]

I’m not sure how any code could address taste, feel or smell, but most codes address sight to some extent. Form based codes probably do the best job of bringing about a unified look to entire neighborhoods.

Are you just interested in planting something to be green until changed by a contractor, to make folk more amenable to dropping their wallet at the mall and go home maybe, or is there some kind of vision?  Is it to reflect local flora in a natural habitat or be forward looking, say to support elfin figures like a fairy lustre plate as a backdrop…[Read more]

Anecdote time:  I once worked in a climate and country where date palms, Phoenix dactylifera, were almost revered for just what Boilerplate wrote plus the essential fruits, plus the use of all parts of the tree for day to day appendages of life.  
For variety on a project, I suggested using accents of Washingtonia robusta and darn near lost my j…[Read more]

You asked, ‘Can’t a complex metric bring about a visceral esthetic?‘  Good question Roland.  
I have not seen any planning metrics that address standards for the five, shall I say, coarse modals of sense perception…sight, taste, touch, feel and smell.  If someone can share experience of ‘code’ that addresses these senses as the basis of qu…[Read more]

Is this post really a concern for anyone here?  The replies to this topic have talked all about how this job being posted on the Lounge is detrimental to the profession because others not in our profession might see it and get the wrong opinion.  My question is, how often does anyone from the general public log onto the Lounge?  It was a job post…[Read more]

May his hereafter be bathed in swathes of ornamental grasses…

This was a really good idea btw. It’s nice seeing all the landscape designs in one group. I believe it may be the first group on deviantart dedicated to landscape architecture. Great move.

Since I’ve never read The Plague or have seen Oran (I’m assuming Oran, Algeria, considering where Camus spent much of his time) so I Googled some images of the city.  I really don’t see what he’s complaining about.  With a Mediterranean climate, I’d take it over the kind of crumbling, rusty, post industrial, ghetto-ized messes that a lot of our…[Read more]

Can’t a complex metric bring about a visceralaesthetic?
I think part of the problem with a lot of urban design, and design in general, is that it does not respond to climate. We group things into styles based on climatic regions, but then we use them anywhere we want without thinking about the consequences for the users.

True, but leave that stuff to Craigslist.  This is a site for Landscape Architects and we have a hard enough time teaching the public that we are more than glorified gardeners.  Job ads like that on a Landscape Architecture website only set the profession back, especially when it comes to prospective LA’s.

Definitely, a job in the landscape is a job.

Nothing unusual there. Don’t blame Land8. The market sucks so bad that fast food jobs are the highlight of many regional career jobs. I’d rather enjoy the cathardic hum and delicious fumes of a mower than standing all day getting spattered with grease, dealing with NASTY customers and asking if they want fries with that. For some of us, it is…[Read more]

I like the ad for “entry level maintenance” and better yet “Landscape Assistant at University of Nebraska”.  Did anyone actually read that one?  The “Premier Social Network For Landscape Architects” is posting a job that includes mowing assigned areas with power mowers and requires an EIGHTH GRADE EDUCATION??!!!  Land8 you should be ashamed of yourselves. 

Hey Ada, try this on for size, because I am sure it will be a snug fit.
 
How about emphasizing or, in a very rapid-fire sort of way, develop some really marketable and valued skills sest in this beyond hyper-competitive job market for starters ?
Do you really want to drive yourself deeper into debt by pursuing a masters program so you can just…[Read more]

In reading your post some things occur to me and wonder if you would have any wish to respond here to the points below.
Local authorities in the UK seem to be led by the clubs they all belong to though they contract for tree and planting services as a rule.  No doubt other countries have similar advisers.  Since Victorian times there have been p…[Read more]

Depends on where you would like to practice, what part of the world.  I know in the US an MLA is more beneficial, but in Asia, both are equally needed.  Also look to the future and weigh whether you would like to do more detailed design or larger, broader scale design.  The MUD majors I have worked with do not have the ability to perform de…[Read more]