Land8 Social Media Awards in Landscape Architecture 2018 – Winners!

Last month, we announced the launch of the inaugural Land8 Social Media Awards in Landscape Architecture. Social media has the power to significantly increase the awareness and importance of the profession of landscape architecture, and we believe industry leaders in social media should be promoted and recognized.

We received so many worthy submissions that we decided to extend the awards per category from eight to ten! Rather than a checklist or points, we took a holistic approach to determining the winners to offer a variety of successful social media accounts – be sure to follow the winners to help grow the profession!

Top 10 Social Media Accounts – Landscape Architecture Firms

1. Arterial, LLC | Arterial does a fantastic job of using graphic design, engaging techniques, and educational tidbits to promote landscape architecture and planning. They address the experience of communities in different spaces and how it can be enhanced through human-oriented landscape architecture and street design. Though their following is still growing, their content is top-notch, showing the value and art of landscape architecture for people inside and outside of the industry.
   Accounts to follow:  Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn | Blog
2. EDSA | EDSA utilizes social media to educate its audience on the many facets and benefits of landscape architecture as well as create awareness for the industry. As part of its social media strategy, they focus on diving deep into one topic each month. For example, EDSA covered technology in design, coastal resiliency, urban design trends, hospitality/tourism trends and water in design. They also launched a video series on social media called “Inside the Design Studio”. The interview-style videos showcase EDSA principals discussing the impact of design and the importance of landscape architects in projects.
   Accounts to follow:  Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn | YouTube
3. NAK Design Strategies | NAK uses their social media platforms to share their work, share fantastic global design inspiration, explain what landscape architects really do, and to show people more about what a landscape architecture office is all about. The balance between places and the people behind the design of those places makes for a great account to follow for designers and non-designers alike.
   Accounts to follow:  Instagram | Facebook
4. Cadence | Cadence has utilized various social media platforms to focus on connecting social and physical landscapes. The channels help influence their local community, promote the profession of landscape architecture, and build connections with an international audience of students, designers, and nature enthusiasts. Their feed is populated with an insider’s look at day-to-day operations, environmental awareness, and hyper-local community engagement to yield true “in-person” relationships.
   Accounts to follow:  Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn | Blog
5. TBG Partners | One of the biggest problems facing landscape architects is a lack of recognition by allied professionals and clients. TBG helps solve this problem by educating and then engaging their audience in the design process. Social media allows them to easily showcase the romance of their designs – from videos to beautifully done hand-drawings to immaculate built project photos. TBG does an excellent job of not just showcasing the “what” of what they do, but also the “why.”
   Accounts to follow:  Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn | Twitter
6. Stack Rock Group | Stack Rock Group demonstrates the creative ways their team uses landscape architecture and planning to solve problems for clients. A self-described “quirky and creative” firm, their posts fit the bill and engage the audience in a very fun and relaxed manner. In addition to the fun, their high quality images and informative descriptions of their projects promote the value of landscape architecture.
   Accounts to follow:  Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | Blog
7. Arterra Landscape Architects | Arterra’s account features a full range of images and content of a design studio’s office culture, projects, and the materials that fascinate them. The Instagram account represents not only a company, but also “the visual musings, daily adventures, and site visits of Kate Stickley,” offering a glimpse into the perspective of a leader of a landscape architecture firm.
   Accounts to follow:  Instagram
8. Seferian Design Group | Seferian Design Group utilizes social media to illustrate their people, projects, and process as they relate to landscape architecture. From conceptual design to construction, they believe all aspects of the design process are important to promote and educate followers. It’s clear that the firm values teamwork and gives insight into working in a collaborative architecture firm that is people-oriented.
   Accounts to follow:  Facebook | Instagram | Twitter
9. Agency Landscape + Planning | Agency uses its social media channels for unique purposes. Facebook provides real-time project updates and events. Twitter advocates for ideas that are core to its mission (diversity, resilience, inclusion, and engagement). LinkedIn connects them with clients and collaborators. Instagram shares experiences that “make them feel”. It is the social media embodiment of the firm culture: diverse, fun, feminist, artful, engaging, and expressive of gratitude for the people they work with.
   Accounts to follow:  Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn
10. hutterreimann Landschaftsarchitektur | hutterreimann uses their Instagram account to present competition results and built projects. Even if you don’t speak German, the stunning images and designs are beautiful in any language (there’s always the translate button too!). This account offers a European perspective on modern landscape architecture.
    Accounts to follow:  Instagram

Top 10 Social Media Accounts – Individual Landscape Architects

1. Kale Hicks | Kale created the @LandscapeArch.Rendering Instagram account to be a community for landscape architects, firms, and students alike. It’s a chance to celebrate each other’s work at any level and provides tons of inspiration and the chance to learn from others in the process. It also provides the opportunity to see how landscape architects in other countries are practicing, demonstrating how global the profession is and how much more global it’s becoming. The account has a large following, bringing landscape architects on Instagram together while promoting the profession to others.
   Accounts to follow:  Instagram
2. Gina Ford | If you’re looking for the hot button topics and projects that landscape architects are talking about, you will want to follow Gina. She leverages her leadership to advocate for equal rights, access, and opportunity for underrepresented voices in landscape architecture. She uses social media to spread the best design evidence that landscape architecture is “the best profession on earth”, call out press when they fail to recognize the landscape architect’s contribution, celebrate the amazing work of others (particularly women and people of color), share her own thoughts and writing about the values the profession provides, connect landscape thinkers to ideas and each other, show the world that our profession is fun, funny, and engaging as well as being profoundly important and meaningful.
   Accounts to follow:  Twitter | LinkedIn
3. Zeke Cooper | With a focus on gardens, plants, and details, Zeke created an Instagram account to give viewers a glimpse into his life as a landscape architect. He shares the things he likes, his current and past work, and insight into his design process. The account is educational with a personal touch, giving his audience a great place to find inspiration, which is proven by his large following.
   Accounts to follow:  Instagram
4. James Richards | The primary focus of James’ social media presence is to promote and celebrate freehand design drawing and on-location sketching as foundational skills for designers, as vital ways to see and value the world’s lands and cultures, and to envision a better world. They offer windows into the leadership role of a landscape architect in teaching and promoting these skills across disciplines and in countries around the globe. They foster remarkable conversations about places and placemaking, design, and creativity, giving a landscape architectural point of view a broad, diverse and growing audience.
   Accounts to follow:  Instagram | Blog
5. Ula Maria | Ula uses social media to engage not only with fellow professionals, but also the general public, especially to promote the profession to younger audiences who might be making their career choices or are simply curious about landscape architecture. She keeps the content relevant, fresh, and cool so that landscape and garden design becomes one of the leading professions in the design industries.
   Accounts to follow:  Instagram
6. Faezeh Ashtiani | With thousands of followers on Instagram, mostly in the USA and Iran, her dual language posts help extend her reach and educate them on a variety of topics, including landscape architecture. She has held live stories about landscape architecture programs and the path to becoming a landscape architect. She frequently posts stories of office culture, projects, products, and more. She shows the full scale and variety of what landscape architects do to those who are not the most familiar with the profession. She enjoys talking about the design aspects of the physical environment from her daily commute in Chicago to her international trips, showing the importance of the built environment and how it affects the health, safety, and welfare of us all. It’s a thoughtful and interesting account to follow to learn about the perspective and experience of an Iranian-born landscape architect practicing in Chicago.
   Accounts to follow:  Instagram
7. Jennifer Nitzky | Via Instagram, Jennifer focuses on inspirational landscapes wherever she goes and the details that make the designs great. She does a series of #plantnerd posts highlighting various plants, sharing characteristics of the species. Her Twitter handle is used to raise awareness of landscape architecture by sharing the latest news, announcing calls to action for issues relating to our profession, and engaging others to learn more by providing helpful links. For World Landscape Architecture Month, she visited and highlighted 30 different New York City landscapes.
   Accounts to follow:  Instagram | Twitter
8. Emily Sutherland | Curated from the perspective of a recent graduate landscape architect wandering the globe in search of inspiration, the account utilizes the accessibility of social media to promote Landscape Architecture through the medium of travel. By documenting a diverse range (scale/prominence/location) of projects visited the aspiration is to inspire and educate fellow professionals, as well as non-designers, on the breadth of places which are facilitated by Landscape Architecture. Checkout this Land8 article about her profile from earlier this year.
   Accounts to follow:  Instagram
9. Maren McBride | Maren uses social media with beautifully taken photos to document her day to day life as a landscape architect in the Pacific Northwest, including life at her firm Mithun and the places, spaces, and people (and food) that inspire her. She’s actively engaged in the Seattle design community and hopes to inspire other landscape architects to get involved in awesome organizations like ASLA, ULI, ACE Mentor Program and Techbridge Girls.
   Accounts to follow:  Instagram
10. Sally O’Halloran | Sally, a landscape architecture teacher at University of Sheffield, uses social media to promote the profession to prospective students through #chooselandscape, to encourage the students she teaches to use it specifically to promote planting design through #shefplanting, to highlight the work of the landscape architecture department and colleagues, and to highlight good examples of planting design in landscape architecture case studies. This is a fun and informative account to see landscape architecture through the lens of an academic.
    Accounts to follow:  Instagram | Twitter

Top 10 Social Media Accounts – Allied Organizations

1. American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) | Keeping with its mission, ASLA’s social media channels  advance landscape architecture through advocacy, communication, education, and fellowship. This is the place to find award winning projects (mostly in the USA) and to see what recent efforts the organization is doing to advance the profession, reaching and inspiring many outside of the USA as well with its large following and reach.
   Accounts to follow:  Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | Pinterest
2. The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF) | In addition to announcing new initiatives, furthering the reach and exposure of media coverage, and empowering advocates to take action – all while actively promoting the work of landscape architects and allied professionals – TCLF leverages its myriad social media platforms to drive traffic to its expansive website and advance its strategic communications/messaging. Also, Birnbaum Blogs now debut on Dezeen, a global and influential design forum, to further elevate the profession’s visibility.
   Accounts to follow:  Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn | Blog | Pinterest | YouTube
3. Landscape Architecture Foundation (LAF) | LAF uses social media to recognize student scholarships winners, fellows, researchers, and exemplary design and business practices in landscape architecture. They share stories to lead the profession forward on issues of equity and inclusion and on designing for climate change. In doing so, they inspire action from landscape architects, from making sure to vote to encouraging lifelong learning to building a culture of philanthropy within the profession. LAF has their finger on the pulse of “next practices” in landscape architecture.
   Accounts to follow:  Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | LinkedIn
4. Landscape Forms | A leading manufacturer of site furniture and lighting, Landscape Forms sets the bar high for manufacturers utilizing social media with high quality photography that not only features their products, but also the beautifully designed landscape where it is situated. Their posts engage the audience and the landscape architects they work with, along with their clients. Each post is set to activate the potential of outdoor space and enrich the experiences of the people who use them. A recent initiative includes featuring student profiles to help them share their passion and grow their industry network.
   Accounts to follow:  Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn
5. Linescapes | Linescapes support landscape architects and others by helping them use drawing to understand their environment better as well as communicate their ideas more easily to the public. They publish their knowledge and drawing advice online for free and use social media to reach a larger audience. It’s their firm belief that if they can help practicing professionals carry out their work better, they contribute to the advancement of the profession. Their YouTube videos are super helpful, high quality, and fun to watch.
   Accounts to follow:  YouTube | Facebook | Instagram
6. XL Lab at SWA Group | XL Lab, SWA’s firm wide home for research and innovation, provides insights into future conditions in the built environment, analysis of constructed spaces, new tools and technologies through experimentation, and topical studies. Beyond providing key updates and sharing work, they use social media to reveal their research process, showcase external stories and tools they find inspirational, and start a conversation about the challenges of tackling practice-based research in the AEC industry. Their process of documenting their work offers a fascinating and open behind-the-scenes look into their work.
   Accounts to follow:  Instagram | Twitter
7. Vectorworks | Through their channels, Vectorworks (software company for designers) shares user-generated content from both professional and student designers in the industry, promoting their projects, accomplishments, and successful workflows to various design professionals. They often feature industry news, trends, and articles too. They share free landscape-oriented webinars on a monthly basis, as well as promote industry trade shows and events. It’s clear they are supporters and promoters of everything landscape architecture.
   Accounts to follow:  Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | LinkedIn | YouTube | Blog
8. Green Roofs for Healthy Cities (GRHC) | GRHC social media channels increase the awareness of the economic, social, and environmental benefits of green roofs, green walls, and other forms of living architecture through education, advocacy, professional development and celebrations of excellence. They value their partnerships with landscape architects and provide inspiration and resources that designers should take advantage of for their green roof and related projects.
   Accounts to follow:  Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
9. LOFscapes | LOFscapes (“LOF”, borrowed from Mapuches Chilean aborigines meaning “community”, and “scapes”, English for “configurations”) is a space for critical discussion about the transformation of the Chilean landscape, particularly in the last two decades. The audience is able to take a unique and authentic look at landscape architecture in Chile.
   Accounts to follow:  Facebook | Instagram | Twitter
10. Kansas State University Student Chapter of the ASLA / Michigan State University Student Chapter of the ASLA | We ruled this one a tie as both represent great examples of how student ASLA chapters can engage their student members as well as a wider audience to those outside of their program and soon-to-be profession.
    Accounts to follow:  KSU Instagram | MSU Instagram | MSU Facebook

Want to be a part of this list? Please check back for the call for self-nominations for 2019!