Andrew Garulay, RLA

No contradiction at all. We influence, but we do so within the project that either happens or does not happen because someone else needs or wants it done.

Every chef needs to work with ingredients and a kitchen. In our line of work, we work in someone else’s kitchen and with their menu almost all of the time. We might add some spices and…[Read more]

… and how does “society” change landscape architecture other than what they want to buy??? …… by all of those regulatory boards that you hate.

Those are the two big realities of landscape architecture – you can only do what other people want you to do and you have to do it within the bounds of regulations. You better like one of those or…[Read more]

Define what youwill do in a proposal and put a flat price on it. It takes away doubt over how long it will take and absorbs any learning curve or lack of speed from being new at it (should you be overcoming that) . It is always easier to sell a flat price than an open ended running meter.

….. the DOT seems to put you about as close as possible to the things that you hate and about as far as possible from the things you like. Why are you not in a part of the profession that matches up better with your likes or at least does not match up so cosely to your dislikes?

I’ve not designed rest areas (bath house for a nudist colony, but never a rest area), and have never seriously considered the factors that would go into choosing the right seating for a particular rest stop. You just made me think about seating walls and benches a lot more than I normally do which made me want to point out some differences that…[Read more]

I had no idea that homeless sleeping on seating is a problem in highway rest stops – definitely other problems, but this is the first I have heard of the homeless frequenting these areas. Which leads to the obvious question …. are there other activities that may be the inspiration for not using benches and substituting seating walls? I can’t…[Read more]

The Association is like any other. Membership numbers come first. It is hard to increase membership if you are declaring the profession more stressed than others.I’d go further to say that they went out of their way to attract environmental activists by projecting part of our profession onto the whole profession. It loaded schools with activist…[Read more]

I like yor posts, Rick.

I stopped getting bogged down in the “Public Perception” of landscape architecture a long time ago. The people who think it is “this” or “that” are people who will only understand “this” or “that”. Having those people know that there are other aspects to landscape architecture does not really matter that much because if…[Read more]

Lee,

Of the people who I know who have degrees in landscape architecture (who have been out of school for many years), more are design/build landscape contractors who never went after the licensing (most because they went into or already were into a business of their own). That opportunity is not denied to you just because you got your…[Read more]

Yeah, I migt be taking this too seriously after reading the thousands of posts about how we are not respected and that we are better than anyone else for design solutions from students and unemployed landscape architects. I’m getting brainwashed.

Sorry to be to hard on you and the subject.

I work full time in a multi-purpose role as the only…[Read more]

It just seems to me that it would not take much to know a little about the demographics just by what part of town it is in if time and budget constraints made further effort out of the question. It is known that the shuffleboard court exists, so either someone has been there or there is a plan showing it. I would expect that other things could be…[Read more]

There is no demographic user group to start with? There are no adjacent activities?

Thinking small does not mean you can not make observations and make conclusions based upon them, does it? You can choose to look at it as a concrete slab and try to come up with all the possible uses of a concrete slab, but that is only one aspect.

There must be…[Read more]

… there must be a current type of comprehensive plan whether it is a plan of physical features or of activities that are wanted to be encouraged. Use those as a guide and try to bend the site to fit those needs or bend those desired activities to fit the site. This is supposed to be what makes us better than engineers and architects, isn’t it?

That is a great response, Nick.

That is not a new way of doing things, however. There are always new directions to steer toward. Development keeps changing as our values change and how we live changes. The things that we hate that developers do today were new and innovative ideas in the past in many cases. Once things are put into practice, the…[Read more]

Yes, If you directly influence the design on the land then you are doing part of the design.

Thanks for the participation. I guess you and I are the only ones still working on land design. I’m not sure what everyone else is doing, but I really would like to know.

I think that insecurity is not something you suffer from, Gabimo. It is a disease that can get in the way of a lot of things. It tends to make us isolate ourselves instead of interact and join a bigger community where we can be multi-dimensional along with others. It makes us make decisions based on wishful thinking rather than practicality.

Why let the shuffleboard structure drive your design? Would it make more sense to go back to the basics and explore the needs of the park? Then do an analysis of the situation on the ground to see how this area, with or without the structure of the shuffleboard, lends itself to address any of those needs and if then if the structure is beneficial…[Read more]

It is a bit like discussing weeds. There are two basic uses of the word “weed” (three, if you throw Mr. Quackenbush into the mix). One is “inherent weed species” and the other is simply “a plant out of place”.

A plant that is functioning for aesthetic benefit. is by definition an ornamental plant (such as the poison ivey for fall color mentioned…[Read more]

These are both very diverse fields with a hell of a lot more overlap than exclusivity. The question may be better phrased as “where are the differences between landscape architecture and landscape design?”.

Anytime this subject is brought up it pits people against each other and brings out total stereotypes in both directions.

I was a landscape…[Read more]

We do it from time to yime by using energy dissapation rocks below a flared pipe end and if it is a large area we section off the first area for sediment to drop out as well before the water spills over into the bigger area.

A lot of the commercial zoning in one of the towns that we work in requires us to use bioswales and retention ponds as much…[Read more]