Admissions Prep: First Professional MLArch

[Erica Faulkenberry]

I’ve seen lots of great discussions concerning portfolios, but most have been geared towards people with a background in design/arch/la. Does anyone in a similar position have a portfolio they wouldn’t mind sharing, or advice on how to get a competitive portfolio together? I’m looking into taking community college classes for studio courses, but I would love to hear what classes/preparations other people felt were really great for putting together a portfolio, or were just nice to have under their belt.

I’d also love recommendations on a few books: landscape architecture histories to set the stage, and current theories/trends.

[Andrew Spiering]

Hi Erica,

Great topic!  Thanks for using Land8 as a resource.  Check out Jennifer de Graaf’s blog… she has written several blog posts on the subject here on Land8.  Also, New School or Architecture + Design created a video, that I wrote about here, with some tips that are useful for folks without design experience.  

Hope this helps!

[Chris Whitted]

You might also take a look at this thread if you haven’t already:

https://land8.com/forum/topics/portfolio-for-entry-to-mla-programme

[Tosh K]

It’s about creative potential as much as interest: photography, botanical sketches (stuff from your basic community college arts classes).  Lay them out in a graphically thoughtful manner with a short paragraph on your thought process/post-production analysis of each work and it’ll be competitive.  The essay/letter-of-intent/letters of recommendations can often way more heavily for first professional degrees anyway.

Reading lists would differ depending on why you want to do LA but:

The Basics:

“Landscape Design: A Cultural and Architectural History” – Elizabeth Barlow Rogers

“Theory in Landscape Architecture: A Reader” – Simon Swaffield

“Recovering Landscape: Essays in Contemporary Landscape Architecture”: – James Corner

“The Language of Landscape”- Anne Spirn

For more fun:

Any of the collections of essays by John Brinkerhoff Jackson (cultural geographies), “Design for Ecological Democracy” by Randolph T Hester Jr

[Tosh K]

Henry: Yeah, I’m not a fan of corner’s but it does get you knee deep and force you to learn the lingo (for better or for worse) and it does cover contemporary (albeit a decade old now) theory in a more general way than some of the other recent publications.  I did have a few classmates who did read it (backgrounds and strong theoretical interest in LA) prior to attending grad school, and I have to say they got more out of school than me.

I do like Treib (as a writer and lecturer).

[Erica Faulkenberry]

Thanks, Andrew! The New School’s fun video definitely helps takes the edge of the whole process!

[Erica Faulkenberry]

Tosh, thank you for sharing your perspective on the portfolio aspect & for the book recommendations.  I should probably start off with Rogers, but after reading the comments about Corner I’m eager for the challenge 🙂

[Erica Faulkenberry]

Thanks Henry- especially for the note on price as a lot of books on LA are not cheap!

[Tosh K]

I gotta say they’re doing quite well – they got more of the theory than the attitude out of corner’s writing 🙂

I do love Martha, learned a lot in the short internship I had there.

[Tosh K]

Indeed, be prepared to do a lot of research to figure out some of the vocabulary; my only piece of advice is that understanding that a Brit is writing it can help crack some of the text.

[Andrew Spiering]

Indeed… sometimes we forget that the process of designing should be fun!  

[Andrew Spiering]

Yes, another great discussion on the topic!  Thanks for sharing @Chris…

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