What if?, When?, They should…., but what IS?

[Chupacabra]

“What is going on in the green energy world that landscape architects ARE working on?”

Hundreds of thousands of acres of public lands are targeted for the development of solar and wind farms.  LAs are being hired to do the visual resource management and some mitigation work that is related as part of the permitting process.  VRM is required for these types of projects and VRM is our “thing”.  I know of several medium sized firms in the Southwest who pay the rent and keep the lights on by doing VRM stuff (same rules apply for oil and gas, utility corridors, etc. on federal lands), and a couple of those have expanded since the start of the recession.  Some of the massive A/E conglomerates and doing this work now as well.  From what I’ve heard, BLM has a major backlog because of the surge in applications.  However, some of this growth is a bubble as some of the energy developers are really only doing it because of federal grants and those grants will eventually end.

[mark foster]

A lot of questions!  I will give a partial answer to three:

 Is residential any more viable or any less viable than other types of practices currently?

What clients are actually hiring LAs as individuals or firms?

What, if any, clients prefer to avoid LAs and why?

Based on my experience, I believe design build firms will continue to dominate the residential markets.  I see increasing market share in the commercial sectors too.  At some project scales,  D/B  is just a better business model then the traditional adversarial “professional vs. tradesman” model . Less defensive drawing, more flexibility in implementation, and one direction for the client to point in.

Unfortunately, I see LA missing this boat–too few of us are starting,  these types of firms and “landscapers” are filling the void.  But they are hiring.

 

  

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

What did you do?

[Author]

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