Chris Whitted

It’s definitely going to depend on the city and what role their LA’s play.  Are they strictly code review/authoring?  Are they within a department that uses them for design like parks?  Is the role primarily for overseeing design contracts that are bid out to firms?  Is it a public role or a behind the scenes position?  In my area I’ve seen extr…[Read more]

It really depends on the area of practice.  There are opportunities year-round, but I’ve always heard and observed through numbers of job postings that late winter/early spring is the peak of hiring as most firms are busiest over the summer since that’s when most construction happens.  From about Thanksgiving to New Year’s is usually pretty dead b…[Read more]

Again, pay rates would vary significantly based on geographic region.  I wouldn’t expect to be salaried, rather hourly (and with overtime, but that’s a whole other employment law issue).  I can’t give you any numbers with a real backing.  I did mine more than ten years ago, and I made $10 an hour.  Right now I would expect anything between tha…[Read more]

I’m going to have to at least partially disagree with both of you on this one.  It’s true I’ve been out of school (at least my LA degree) for a while and a lot of things have changed, but so far as I know an internship is still an internship and there are both paid and unpaid ones out there.  In fact, while I’ve never heard of one for LA yet (…[Read more]

Were I to hazard a guess, I’d say he’s asking about turf options for sporting fields.  Soccer, specifically.

Are you trying to learn detailing, which is only a part of cds?  Are you trying to learn construction documentation for LA in general?  Or are you trying to learn specifically how to use AutoCAD to generate cds? Those three questions have very different answers.
There are a lot of resources on detailing out there.  Depending on the type of fi…[Read more]

My experience differs from Roland’s, which may be a geographical thing or any of a host of other reasons.  But only once (twice?) was I ever contacted in the few times (and several months in total) I had a resume posted on ASLA over the years, and it was by a headhunter, not an actual firm or LA.  As a non-member, no it is absolutely not worth t…[Read more]

Find someone who does what you want to do and talk to them.  Are they an engineer, landscape architect, or planner?  Or something else?  Do the people you think do what you think you want to do actually do it, or do they just manage it?  Is there enough of that kind of work to have a reasonable chance of getting into it, or unless you’re ‘per…[Read more]

Sounds very similar to a shirt I was given that was created by the student ASLA chapter of a particular school for the 2011-12 year.  The front reads “Yes, I am a Landscape Architect.” while the back says “No, I will not do your back yard.”  I’m not sure which thought came first – wondering if they had any concept of the current job climate in ou…[Read more]

I’m afraid professional liability seems to be one of those taboo subjects.  Nobody ever wants to discuss it in specifics, unless related to a code or design potential and then only in vague terms.
From what little I’ve gathered over the years, you’re looking for a lawyer.  I’ve been given the impression that most liability insurance providers e…[Read more]

Rob obviously has more direct contact with/knowledge of those in the field than the rest of us, or at least those who are LAs in that field.  As he says, “depending on which part of the industry you’re aiming at” because to my mind there are a lot of other ways into what it seems like you want to do (the architects and set designers and e…[Read more]

Yes, there are some programs that are more science/practice oriented and some more design/process oriented – Purdue vs Ball State for example.  It’s actually a fairly common division among programs and may or may not be indicated by which school/college the program is in, though that’s a starting point.  You may also want to consider e…[Read more]

Assuming you set the TSPACEFAC variable back to the default 1 and that didn’t fix it, check the text style and/or font used in the linetype definition.  It’s possible the style or font is different in one of the two files.  If the second file came from someone else, the linetype saved in the file may be differently defined but named the same as…[Read more]

I did, but it was ten years ago when I was just starting out and I don’t recall all that much detail.  The project was a car dealership renovation involving both architectural expansion/redesign and some landscape/display features.  I know we met with her once, but I don’t really remember her having any real feedback or changes for our de…[Read more]

Not from what I’ve seen.  As many or more civils around here were out of a job and offices closed as there were LAs.  And most of the civil-with-an-LA places I contacted in neighboring states were the same.  I think it has more to do with area of practice; civils and LAs are very similar in that they both have many fields of operation.  If you…[Read more]

Actually, comparing GHz between Intel and AMD or even between different processor designs (particularly differing numbers of cores) as a direct number is like comparing apples and oranges – they may both be fruit/speed, but they’re not the same thing.  Intel has a more efficient processor architecture currently, and can out-perform a same or e…[Read more]

Not to white-knight for ASLA or anything, but they did do at least a couple of things to try to help members.  There was a dues-relief program for at least a couple of years (not sure how long it lasted) during which they waived annual dues entirely for members facing ‘economic hardship’.  They also eliminated fees for posting your resume on the s…[Read more]

“the chasm between what landscape architects think they do and what the majority of them actually do has been very deep. Until now.”
Is this true?  Am I in some tiny minority who has always recognized that they can’t all be grand, showy, award-winning projects?
From year one of school I was always told, and my experiences since have supported, th…[Read more]

Let me start with I am neither currently employed or left to support a family.
It’s a well-written blog post but personally I find nothing new there.  His thoughts align much with my own, though our experiences have been a little different.  I’m not sure anyone makes it through an LA program and into the job market without hearing about long h…[Read more]

For those of you who don’t get ASLA’s DIRT emailed to you, this appeared in my inbox today and I have to say exemplifies the first thought I had when this thread originally popped up.
http://dirt.asla.org/2012/08/14/a-natural-wi-fi-station-in-paris/
I’d also like to offer an observation or two regarding National Parks (and other goverment managed…[Read more]