Brandon Reed, CVO, ASLA / Rooftop and Urban Designer / Landscape Architect

We are strictly a design firm. I personally have some construction experience. When I hire, the FIRST thing I ask is about ANY hands-on experience. It’s extremely important in the residential design and PM environment. Although contractors are very helpful to interns during the construction process, I find that the construction mindset makes it…[Read more]

I just took a little Green Associate Review the week before last as part of training for BPI (Building Performance Institute) certification. I plan to take the GA test within the next few weeks, so I’ll post how it goes.

Anyone have a good detail/case study for using planting islands as small stormwater catchment areas? This is for the northeast, and the parking lot will most likely have standard curbs, but if there’s another idea… Just getting started on the project, but excited about the possibilities. Thanks!

Has anyone taken the LEED Green Associate exam? Please share your exam experience.

Katrina – Sorry I accidentally posted a question about the practice tests to your discussion earlier !!

Katrina,
If your program is LAAB accredited, then you should be fine. Email me priviately and I can make some recommendations for you to address the LATC staff.
Stephanie

“I learned the ropes in the field prior to Licensure; I started at an ornamental tree farm then became manager and head of landscapeoperations, then lead designer, then partner in a design build firm, all the while not fulfilled in my carrer thinking that I took the wrong path by not stepping straight into a design firm. It wasnt until I joined a…[Read more]

Baskar – Could you go into more detail with your comments…

I also went to design Build after graduation. I feel that if you understand the installation from the hands on construction aspect, it will make you a better designer and allow you to push boundries because you really understand them.

Contractors can be allies or enemies and it will affect the project on some level. I have found that working in…[Read more]

natural topography( wild grasses area or growing naturally ) can take as landscaped area? or it should be neatly landscaped ( dry or xeroxscping_) area? for site selection ?.

Hands-on all-day workshop on Modeling Residential Sites with Slope in Google SketchUp (for intermediate/advanced users) in San Francisco Feb. 20th, 2010

tal_sketchup.pdf

I wish you all a Merry Christmas or Happy holidays. I hope the new year brings growth and prosperity to you all.

Hi James,
Actually, my professor introduced me to your work this past summer, my first semester in LA, and it was he who let me know about your rendering techniques and color usage. In fact, our first shot at perspectives involved 20 minute perspective-making sessions that aimed to emulate your graphics.
I could only hope that if he hadn’t told…[Read more]

Hi Vanessa; glad you’re having success with the colored pencil techniques. You have a good eye! I do use a cream pencil combined with peach on almost all buildings and hardscape at the very beginning of coloring a drawing, then wash over them with whatever color will best depict the material I’m envisioning…terra cotta, slate blue. etc. The…[Read more]

Nick,
Thanks! I’ll probably be doing more of these in the future and I would like to seed them be as representative of the true design as possible.

Thanks!

Eric-

I got your message. I need to make some evergreens for a plan tomorrow as fate would have it. I’ll post my steps here or shoot you a message.

-Nick

Eric,

I couldn’t tell you how to do it using drop shadows, but I could offer some good advice on doing it manually in photoshop without creating numerous layer copies and keeping the file size down.

send me a message if you still need help with this and I’ll explain some simple tricks.

I also got this information from GBCI: If you area a LEED AP and you choose a specialty – there is no harm in keeping your enrollment and that if you do not report any continuing education hours at the end of the 2 years your LEED AP with Specialty credential will expire, however you will remain a LEED AP without specialty.

Hi All,
A little Bio. for your consumption. I started irrigation design in 2001 in Arizona. Worked with a L. A. in Arizona, who exclusively went after IRRIG. projects. He did very well, However I wanted to grow to other areas and moved on. Jump to the present, In the last office I worked in (March 2009), My billable hours for Irrigation Design was…[Read more]

FYI: LEED Credentialing Maintenance Program (CMP) – read last sentence!!

Enrollment Options: LEED APs without specialty will be provided with an enrollment window, a 2-year period between fall 2009 and fall 2011. LEED APs without specialty can view their enrollment window through My Credentials at http://www.gbci.org. The last enrollment windows close…[Read more]