Blog

“The Tragic Kingdom or; Prisoner in a Chinese Theme Park”, (found on most book dealer websites; Amazon, Barnes and Noble etc), is a behind-the-scenes look into the field of design and build in China. The book is a profile of the personalities, culture, and psychology of the world’s most massive looming superpower as seen through the eyes of an ex-pat American. “I have lived and worked in China for over ten years, competing within their system, making my way as everything from a freelance artist in small operations to a senior designer for large corporations. I have witnessed a formidable decade in which China has commanded a modern presence on the world stage. I have participated in the planning, designing, and building of mega-theme parks in Beijing, world-class aquariums in Shanghai, gig...Read More

Via Design Under Sky One of the greatest impacts the process of becoming a Landscape Architect has had on me is the way in which it’s made me “aware” of everything around me, and reminds me of a Boris Pasternak line from Doctor Zhivago: Lara walked along the tracks following a path worn by pilgrims and then turned into the fields. Here she stopped and, closing her eyes, took a deep breath of the flower-scented air of the broad expanse around her. It was dearer to her than her kin, better than a lover, wiser than a book. For a moment she rediscovered the purpose of her life. She was here on earth to grasp the meaning of its wild enchantment and to call each thing by its right name. I notice cracks in sidewalks, oddly constructed corners, and all sorts of behavior of the li...Read More

April is National WORLD Landscape Architecture Month! The designation was made in 2008 by the International Federation of Landscape Architects (IFLA). We have a new T-Shirt design in our Land8 Shop that will help promote our profession. I encourage everyone to “spread the love” by wearing the shirt and telling friends and neighbors, and even strangers on the street, bus, and in the supermarket why Landscape Architecture is a vital profession. Education starts on the street. Now, let’s get moving… Click the images above to purchase.

Last summer I started blogging tutorials on my new rendering methods in the hopes that it would A) help people looking to do Photoshop plan renderings a starting point to work from, B) cultivate some conversation on other people’s techniques, C) show how much work goes into any given rendering. This was (I hope) successful on at least the first and last count. However, the conversation I was looking for never really started… except in my own head. As I finished my Master’s thesis at the end of 2009, I had to render some additional views of my 3D Studio Max model, and realized how unhappy I was with the textures I had used previously. Colors were over-saturated, tiling artifacts were fairly obvious, and everything just looked off to me. That lead to some experimenting with...Read More

Wow. Another great day at Labash 2010! I want to give a BIG HUMONGOUS thank you to the students of UNLV that planned such a successful event. These guys know what hospitality is all about! Last night’s Happy Hour went really well. We helped score the students discounted drink prices at Hennessey’s Tavern in downtown Las Vegas. This was the first stop on their nine-hole pub crawl. Just a side, you have to check out downtown if you ever visit Vegas. It has the old-school charm of the historic Las Vegas set under a light dome, known as the “Fremont Street Experience.” Here is a video I found on YouTube: Back to the crawl… The students set out on a “social networking” expedition where they went to several establishments on Fremont Street sampling the l...Read More

Labash 2010 is well underway! We had an excellent BBQ at Sunset Park yesterday evening to kick things off. Today was the first day of the expo and we had a good turnout at our booth. We are raffling off iTunes gift cards and giving away some Sharpies. (Great ideas start with a sketch!) Our booth is located between two reputable companies – ValleyCrest Companies, who just created their firm profile on Land8.net, and our friends over at Land F/X. Some other vendors at the expo this year are Dean Hill of GreenScreen, Peter Rohrer of Landscape Forms, and Paul Bambauer of IRONSMITH. Students attended a lecturer given by Walter Hood and gathered at lunch-time for a televised rally to save UNLV’s Landscape Architecture program which has been threatened by major budget cuts. Tonight we...Read More

Land8 is hosting a webinar about hand drawing with Brian Lin of the Mike Lin Graphic Workshop and it lead me to reevaluate the tiny amount of time that I personally devote to sketching and hand rendering. Mike and Brian Lin are the father and son team at Mike Lin Graphic Workshop, an enterprise whose mission is to help you the individual become more confident, comfortable, and skilled at hand drawing/rendering. Click here to sign up for Land 8’s webinar! Graphic Workshop’s front page states, ‘This workshop will change your life’ and it is safe to say these men are believers in the power of the pen. One aspect of their practice that I find fascinating is that a time frame is frequently given to drawings, such as ‘this tree will take fifteen minutes’ or &#...Read More

It was 8:00 in the morning in Tucson, and our Mazda 5 micro van was filled to capacity; my daughter (7) and son (5) were prepared for departure and were blowing their final kisses to Grandma. My wife and I weren’t necessarily looking forward to the drive back to chilly Colorado; why would we when the pleasantly mild Arizona temps were treating us like royalty? All that stood between us and our midway overnight stop in Albuquerque was my buried-in urge to visit a few of the many therapeutic gardens sprinkled throughout Phoenix. As we made our way into the city, a sense of eagerness began to surface as I had surpassed the point of reading about the benefits of curative spaces and was primed to wholly experience them. I had the added benefit of having my children in attendance as I firmly bel...Read More

German-based landscape architecture firm, Atelier Dreiseitl, is opening a studio in Portland, Oregon – its first site in the United States. Launching Atelier Dreiseitl’s Portland studio are two partners and two leading principals formerly with the Portland firm Walker Macy. Mauricio Villarreal, Charles Brucker, Eric Bode and Zeljka Carol Kekez will direct the firm’s North and South Americas’ operations. Villarreal will serve as the studio’s director. Ueberlingen, Germany-based Atelier Dreiseitl also has offices in Singapore and Beijing. Via BizJournals Read Full Press Release

Like many landscape designers and architects, I receive the Landscape Architecture magazine on a monthly basis. But I have to say that over the past year or so, I’ve been less inclined to read it. It’s not because the case studies or product information isn’t important to me or that it’s not relevant to the profession; it’s because there seems to be this glaring disparity between what goes on in LA mag land and the real world. Take this excerpt from a much appreciated reader in this month’s Letters to the Editor, written by Buck Pittman, ASLA of Jacksonville, FL: “Am I missing something in Landscape Architecture? Where have been the articles and commentary concerning our profession within the worst economy since the Depression? To read our flagship publication each month, no one would gues...Read More

SWA Group Names L.A.’s Gerdo Aquino President, Joins CEO Kevin Shanley On Executive Team of Global Landscape Architecture and Urban Design Firm Los Angeles (March 10, 2010) – SWA Group, one of the most highly recognized landscape architectural and urban design firms in the world, announced today that Gerdo Aquino, a Managing Principal of SWA’s Los Angeles office, was named President of the firm. He joins the management team led by CEO Kevin Shanley, a Design Principal of the Houston office who was both President and CEO and now shares some of those responsibilities. Aquino is an active designer heading the Los Angeles studio for SWA, and is also an Adjunct Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture at the University of Southern California. SWA’s Los Angeles office was recognized in 2008...Read More

I finally had an opportunity to watch “The Outdoor Room with Jamie Durie” recently and I must say I’m a bit perplexed by the term “sustainable landscape design” quite frankly. Now this post has nothing to do with Jaime’s design style or abilities, which unquestionably are considerable and well renowned (It’s at this point I have to admit I never heard of the guy until HGTV). My thoughts have everything to do with what constitutes the term “sustainable” especially in light of what I saw on the show. The premise was creating an Australian styled outdoor room for a home in Duarte, California. In order to do this Jaime flew back to Australia for design ideas and inspiration from some of his previous design installations. This notion alone bothered me immensely because, after all, the man is fr...Read More