Jobs in London

[dan paul]

I recently moved to London England from Ontario Canada, I have successfully graduated Landscape Design from Fanshawe College, but haven’t had much real world design experience.

In Canada I worked Landscape build with a small company for 5 years and was able to practise my design work a bit there, but not to my full contentment.

Since moving to London I have found work with a landscape build company but with no hope of furthering my design work.

I am looking for advice any one might have to help get my foot in the door of Landscape Design

[dan paul]

Other info I graduated in 2012 and although I have used sketch up loads I’ve been slacking on my AutoCAD so I’m spending some time to familiarize myself with it as well as getting back into following up on current landscape issues and ideas. Looking at some job postings I can’t help but feel under qualified sometimes so if anyone has any recommendations to further my education without breaking the bank I am open to hear suggestions.

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

My opinion is that in order to get into a position to further your landscape design career, you need to focus on filling existing needs of an existing landscape designer/architect or a firm. It took me a while to understand that there is a difference between looking at your career from the inside out and looking at it from the outside in.

 

We tend to believe that our potential means a lot more than it does to the people who may hire us. While they may appreciate that to some extent, what really matters to an employer is that they can plug you in and have you producing in a profitable manner right away or very soon. More often than not, that will be to fill an immediate short coming in that office at that moment – most likely in the production of plans and documents. …. likely as a cad jockey with a good understanding of basic site plan layout standards (vehicular circulation, parking, pedestrian circulation, grading and drainage basics, …). Things like that will get you in the door faster than your knowledge of emerging issues in landscape architecture or that you worked on a hardscape crew building patios.

 

The first thing to wrap your head around is exactly what the needs or potential needs there are for the firms in your area. Then you need to re-write your resume to specifically show how you fit those needs first. Then add your other credentials as if they are a bonus. If they need someone to draft planting plans for public parks, having been to twelve seminars on green roofs really does not matter to fit their needs and may make them think that you’ll leap to a green roof job as soon as one is available. Adding or polishing skills that you identify as needs of potential employers is also important in the mean time.

 

It all starts from knowing what the needs of the offices are.

[Goustan BODIN]

Welcome to the Old World !  To further your design abilities, the first thing to do is expand and enhance your cultural references landscape library. Use your time there to visit places, both the ancient and the new.

First things first, learn the specifics of where you live : you’re at the best place in the world to get to know wth an english garden is. let’s call them the classics. Observe and practice what do they mean by mixed borders, Ha-ha. Take a break, have a tea, some pudding, talk with these old british garden owners ladies, then back to the field. Have you figured out who murdered the guy buried under the roses yet ?

England having been one of the ‘great’ colonial empires, get to know how it did translate on their lands. Visit the places where explorers brought back their plants, tried to adapt them, select them, tame them. Visit the old parks, castles and such. Don’t forget to pillage the library to read the related books. Start with the Lonely Planet, read the general pages (history, recommendations, health and stuff)

England having been on the forefront of world industrialization, visit the places where workers lived crammed in unhealthy brick rows. Then see the first experiments done by ‘liberal’ minds trying to correct these excesses by building differently, more humanely, by introducing parks, personal gardens or other public amenities.

Go back to visiting more parks from that era. Back to the library to read more books.

Now time to see what happened after WWII and the destruction of huge parts of the city. What has been planned, how what is rebuilt, what has been achieved ? What are these modernist bars doing there, to what extend have they been successful or not.  See how some schools or communities have built outdoor playgrounds.

Parks, books, visit the local urbanism agency, there should be plenty of info to explain how London evolved from there on. 

Finally, move on to the contemporary things, from restructuring of ‘the city’, to guerilla gardening, to transformation of old industrial estates. What is that green belt and the multipolar urban development plan we hear about ? There should regularly be exhibitions, conferences and public debates you can attend. Get yourself at the opening vernissage of some happenings. Get drunk. Next day, back to the field, have a bicycle ride on the new bike paths that spread kilometers miles all around. Get close to an architecture/landscape faculty, get yourself invited to the parties, have a few drinks, talk to the girls. That should keep you updated on what’s going on in the area.

Now, when summertime comes, enjoy it because it’s rather brief. Grab your camera and plant your tent up some hill nearby Stonehenge. If you’re lucky, you’ll solve the crop circles enigma, otherwise you’ll just have a blast visiting like everyone else. Go to local pub, have a kidney pie and a pint.

All this should be relatively inexpensive, and should keep you busy for the next couple of years or so. Now, after you’re done with the warming up, cross the channel and go to France to see the real thing…

[Author]

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