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Thank you very much Colter, I am planning on contacting their department as soon as classes start back up this spring semester to make sure I’m taking the right classes.  I’ve been assuming that Quantitative reasoning is calculus, and I’m wanting to get everything I can out of the way before I start in at the UI.

i am currently employed so here’s my answers:
 
1. currently work 40-50 hours per week. Sometimes more during crunch times, but usually 40-50 average. Late nights, weekends, holidays…at some point i’ve worked them all. Not every single day, but on a somewhat routine basis.
2. my coworkers hours vary. some are workaholics and put in long hours…[Read more]

This forum really needs a “poll” function.
 
LA Firm (40-49hr weeks)
LA Firm (50-59hr weeks)
LA Firm (60+ hr weeks)
Arch/Eng Firm (40-49hr weeks)
Arch/Eng Firm (50-59hr weeks)
Arch/Eng Firm (60+ hr weeks)
 
I’ll go first: Arch/Eng Firm (40-49hr weeks)

Thank you all for your replies.  It’s good to hear your opinions based on experience.

…The question is not how many hours a business owner works, it is what is the reality out there for people working in landscape architecture. We are no closer to that answer than when I first posed the question.
 
Someone of you has to be actually employed in an LA firm, I should hope. Those of you who have jobs with LA firms – 3 simple…[Read more]

The boss never had any ideas, his only talent was that he had good
taste. We did have discussions with other designers and the project
manager which often goes well, but at the end of the day, the boss made
the call.

Building Information Modeling (BIM) Typically uses three-dimensional, real-time, dynamic building modeling software to increase productivity in building design and
construction.[2]
The process produces the Building Information Model (also abbreviated
BIM), which encompasses building geometry, spatial relationships,
geographic information, and…[Read more]

Spending 15 hours on an idea, only to get rejected by the boss, doesn’t sound like a very good use of time, labor, budget or creativity. Why wasn’t he / she there to guide you in a different direction after say, 3 hours, max? Boss – “Hey, how’s that idea coming along…? Ah, OK, cool. Why don’t we tweak this and do that…Yeah, that looks better.…[Read more]

Unfortunately that negates the whole idea of BIM to Start with.  The whole point of BIM is place 3d componet design items in the Model and attach all the related database info to it.  How can you accomplish that if you don’t have a 3d plant model for every plant used in BIM?  It would be like building a multistory high rise and substituting 2x…[Read more]

Sweet! The latest version is compatible with AutoCAD 2006! 🙂
I hope he sold his “squiggle” code to AutoDesk for a nice chunk of dough.

Generally plants are drawn, in plan or perspective, at 3/4 mature size. Designs are not sold to the client depicting 2″ caliper trees with gator bags and guy-wires. We show what it will look like… Visualization is still, and always will be the designers job. Sure, it would be cool to see the whole site “grow” before your eyes in a 3D…[Read more]

Just 40 hours?  EEK!  You obviously aren’t running your own firm.  If you own your own company and you are just putting in 40 hours you probably won’t own it long… 40 hrs is for sissys!  HA!
 
s.

It probably varies a lot based on location. If the cheapest housing you can find (studio) is $1250/month, $40k doesn’t get you far… $400-student loan payment, $70-cell phone, $60-auto insurance, $150-gas, $50-internet, $400 food, $40 dry-cleaning… after taxes, you have a $240 deficit every month and those are just the basics, you haven’t…[Read more]

Hi Thomas,
 
I agree that SketchUP is getting close but it is not quite there yet for some tasks.  The biggest issue I see with BIM (except from the way you describe it… it sounds like it will do everything including kiss my wife good nite for me.  🙂  just kidding of course.   No seriously,  who is going to create all of the 3d plant materi…[Read more]

Yeah the more creative the office the more time you spend working. I’ve worked 15 hour days only to have my idea rejected during crit with the boss. I basically had to start over from scratch. I wasn’t happy, but that’s the nature of the work. Fortunately, not all offices are this insane. If you’re in an interview, you better ask what the work…[Read more]

SketchUP Pro is very close to being able to replace AutoCAD for basic landscape design. I’m still playing with “Layout” but my initial impression is that it’s not quite there… it’s nice for simple layouts/presentations but being a separate application is a bit clumsy, creating planting/material schedules with symbols seems like it might be…[Read more]

I have not used this program in a few years, but it seemed to work well for site plans.
http://www.aay.com/squiggle.htm
 
 

Over priced, but not over rated, in my opinion. It is a huge world in there, although most of us don’t need all of that complication. It is nice to have so many options as well as a pain in the neck that there are so many options. If you are put in the position where you have to use a lot of it, it really sucks not to have it.
 
Carlson or…[Read more]

Our work nearly always exterior and urban landscape oriented. The talk is “Creative Lighting for Public Space and Infrastructure”. here is more info about our work http://bit.ly/ASLA_Dirt-Interview.
I am researching opportunities to offer my NightSeeing program to conferences (as I did for the ASLA National this year http://bit.ly/ASLA_LightWalk)…[Read more]