Andrew Garulay, RLA

The wider the pipe, the lower the pressure. I’d guess that the problem in trying to stop it is fighting the pressure. I have to wonder if they could not place a 20′ (or 50′) wide pipe with a mechanism that could close after in is properly anchored and sealed below the high pressure leak, while letting the oil and pressure blow through as it is…[Read more]

I don’t think that is the case at all that we need oil on the beaches. Hell, people are raising gazillions on global warming based on nothing more than people announcing data. Non-profits are self mobilizing and they are just not out there this time around. I don’t get it. If nothing else, it is a fund raising opportunity which makes me really not get it.

Where are the fund raisers and volunteer organizations that were able to spring up over night for Haiti or the tidal wave? I know and agree that BP should foot the bill, but there are huge needs in mobilization to protect wetlands and beaches, let alone the cleanup. This started over a month and a half ago and the government and BP are…[Read more]

One problem in a lot of things, not only runoff, is that when a problem exists in certain situations that has a good solution applied to it, people then want to project that as a standard situation with a standard solution with the assumption that the affect has the same benefit or not applying it has the same consequences. Then we wind up doing…[Read more]

Yeah, everyone knows that non-capatalist countries don’t use oil and are much better to the environment. How rediculous does that sound?

Most of mine never left the university world other than for part time associations with private firms (for resume?). The ones that did get real world experience were more demanding of discipline. Maybe from their backgrounds, or maybe it was their nature, I really don’t know.

ALL drainage is absorbed on site on our projects. Only very few municipal systems have some old networks of pipes, but no one can add to those even if they wanted to. We use rain gardens, bioswales, catch basins into leach pits or other infiltration devices. It all replenishes the groundwater on site. Preferably, it is filtered through vegetation,…[Read more]

I have not mischaracterized anything, but have been very mischaracterized by you. I like rain gardens and bioswales except when we have to put them in rediculous locations – in tree islands of 200 -400 SF. I do new construction as well as redevelopment and NONE of any drainage that I’ve worked on is piped or swaled off site, let alone into the…[Read more]

This is an important issue because lots of municipalities are requiring rain gardens and bioswales in applications where they have negative impacts to other values in site design such as safety and maintenance, not to mention real estate. Qualitatively, there is no doubt that some excess nutrients and contaminants are removed, but there seems to…[Read more]

I don’t have a lot of faith that you will land a position by cold calling. Universities more often than not are required to post positions for a certain length of time in well circulated publications for fairness, much like a legal announcement. Many people stay connected to universities where they studied or near where they live and have an…[Read more]

If you are working for the contractor it is understood that you also represent the interests of the contractor. It is only when you are working directly for the client that there is a conflict.

If you sell them a design as an independent designer and then give them a price for you and your sub(s) to build the job you are acting as a contractor…[Read more]

Does anyone believe that if you are hired by a client as a designer or landscape architect and asked to refer or recommend contractors, that you are then an agent for the client and obligated to try to work in the best interest of the client in doing so?

If that is the case, would it not be a conflict of interest to recommend contractors who are…[Read more]

I should clarify. If you are paid by the client and make recommendations of who to hire, do you believe that you do not have an obligation either ethically or legally, to notify the client that you are receiving compensation from the contractor? … Whether residential or commercial.

I share many of the same observations of J Dane. There are many realities that are not often anticipated when you take a job as a designer in a design/build contractor company and you learn about them as the year goes on. That is a good general summary by J Dane.

BUT, the same holds true as an independent designer – unanticipated realities. The…[Read more]

Milking design revisions is not economy dependent at all. It was just as bad in the boom as it is in the bust. It is all about having a system in place with a contract that puts you (your employer) in control. The only way to do that is to make every step of the contract quantitative and in your control.

You can’t just say “x amount of revisions”…[Read more]

I’ve taken the understanding that J. Samuel is working as an employee rather than as a sub. If that is not the case, then what I wrote is not exactly applicable. But, there is a lot that is.

It is a tougher match up because the designer has to make a living off of the design fees if (s)he is contracted. It makes a tough relationship because the…[Read more]

There is no one size fits all answer to this. It starts with where the design leads are coming from which defines the range of demographic you are working within. Design can be a stand alone profit source only if it is working a demographic that values design, the cost of design does not overwhelm the budget of the project, and there is a…[Read more]

Mike, that is very similar to the material that I was looking at a few years ago. I’d like to try it or something similar, but I don’t want to rely on the manufacturer to tell me how it performs (especially after seeing some disasters from other products that still look great on the manufacturers web sites).

Bob,
That sounds interesting, but I’m…[Read more]

Those are interesting inlets. Thanks for sharing the pictures.

I don’t do many strip malls, but they do occur.

In the last week I have worked on a cluster subdivision (with a species of concern in Massachusetts – Eastern Box Turtle), four residential landscapes (including one in an Area of Critical Environmental Concern), an ocean front division of a residential property in Hyannisport, an affordable housing…[Read more]