Are you working or not ?

[Jake Axtman]

Yes… however very little land planning or LA work. Mostly drafting or civil engineering work… grading, paving plans, etc. Located in North Dakota.

[Gauthier Van Malder]

YES

[Gauthier Van Malder]

–> Belgium

[Claudia Chalfa]

Something I’d like to mention:

A silver lining on this economic cloud is that landscape architects are working in related professions right now – I am working in a planning department, for example. I am working on a greenways and connectivity master plan for my city, which is great for them because they can’t afford one outside of office now; and great for me because it’s sprucing up my portfolio, keeping me in the game and (maybe most importantly) letting a lot of other people see what we do. Let’s use these opportunities to help everyone out there understand how important landscape architects are. We can lead by example, and when things pick up, they will start turning to us more for advice.

[Claudia Chalfa]

More detail about my job situation, which is in SC: I was living at the coast and working in a planning dept. 4 years ago, and I went back to grad school to get my MLA (a dream of mine for about 15 years now). I graduated in May of last year. During the preceding months I had spoken to several firms that were very positive towards me and I was sure of a good job upon graduation. Then in December of ’08 the emails suddenly stopped being answered… everything was just suddenly quiet.

I went crazy sending out resumes to all sorts of places, and my persistence paid off, I got a job with a planning department. It’s less money than I made before going to grad school (and now of course I have student loans to pay off) but things could be so much worse.

I recently read the BLS website description of landscape architecture and they still maintain that it is a high growth industry. Are they out of touch or will things really pick up and gain momentum again?

I simply refuse to give up on this profession. This is my calling, it’s all I want to be. I will continue to do design work for free if I have to. And I agree about the ASLA… I saw an ad in a magazine the other day for architects – why don’t we have anything like that?

[David Hunt]

No- 13 months.

I think work or no work, everyone is scared of what is coming next out of Washington. I am now living with my in-laws, who own a dental practice. They get information every month about pending legislation and what it will do to their operating, overhead, etc. They are waiting to see what will get passed and how they will have to react (by firing people, cutting wages/hours). I am not trying to be idealogical, just saying that from what I have seen ALL small businesses are scared, and I have seen it first hand.

[Jill Bellenger, ASLA | LEED GA]

This is a great discussion, I look forward to hearing the conclusions of all your responders. I didn’t reply originally because my answer is both Yes and No.

I was laid off from my old firm in Oct 2008, my husband shortly thereafter. We’d talked about starting up our own firm and decided this was the perfect time to do it. So a year ago, we started our own LEED consulting firm. But because there is so much competition now, we have been struggling to land clients. Luckily, we’re both on unemployment still and it’s helping us get by. Long story short, 2009 was a very rough year but we are optimistic. We know too many people (mostly architects) out of work that were laid off even more than once in the past year or so.

The decision to start a firm that utilized our combined skills just made sense. I may not be designing anymore but I’ve never wanted to only design; my interests are more in educating and advocating for green design. This recession has really helped me to evolve my career into something I’m really passionate about, so I would advise others to try looking at it that way instead of my original attitude of ‘man, this sucks’.

[CML]

Update!

I am going for an interview in two weeks. I can not give specifics as the position is not currently being advertised and I don’t want a frenzy of inquiries & possible competition for the position.
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I will say that it is for a very good firm in a notorious rust belt city near my fiance’s family. We are thrilled at this possibility! I pray that I do well in this interview, because I am almost desperate for any kinda job. Haven’t had steady employment since Feb. 2008.

[Anonymous]

No, tt’s been almost 11 months since I was laid off. Some freelance work pops up at times.

[Paul Corsetti]

Yes…working!

[alland]

I started a freelance consulting company around four years ago on the side, it is now part time…barely a living at this time….high end residential is the only if any, LA work around. The engineering firms have been canning LAs on and off since the beggining of time. We LAs should all build consulting companies made up of us networking throughout the country. Sublet our work for those who need us WHEN they need us….all the clients would make up our revenue…thats a big dream but I its how I feel and probably the only way to get respected. We can do this now that we have the net.

I think consulting is the WAY of the future for us.

[Anu M]

Yes.

[CML]

Thats an interesting point. I was laid off from two engineering firms the past two years, due to lack of work. Who did they fire first? Engineers that had nothing to do….no…..Cad techs that worked for the engineers, but also had nothing to do….no. If you guessed Landscape Architects, you are correct.
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It seems that we are expendable. Unfortunately, too many of us work for Engineering based firms. In many states these Engineers and their comrads can stamp Landscape Designs, which makes us expendable when times get tough.
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From an Engineer’s perspective (and I heard this at the place I used to work), we just make things look pretty.
The lack of respect and value of our services by Engineers is absolutely insulting.
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During good times (when there was plenty of money around) we could negotiate and advocate alternative designs with these engineers. However, because of this recession many of these Engineer owned firms feel that they can go it alone and just put forth projects that are ugly, mundane and OVER ENGINEERED.
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From there perspective, why not bypass the Landscape Architect altogether and save a few bucks. After all, who cares if the project is boring and the landscape looks like ass, as long as we increase our profit margins.

[nca]

The natural order of things in most cases should be Landscape Architect >> Civil Engineer, not the other way around. It doesnt work well that way I’m convinced. It’s not an ego thing and I’m not that naive, it just is what it is.

My boss, who was once a civil engineering student and has worked very closely with civils on many projects over the years agrees.

[Jillene Sheridan]

Yes…and grateful. I do see a significant amount of work circulating in the Residential area, more friends that are GC are seeing it too.

[Author]

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