[Craig Richmond, RLA]

Landscape Architects – RESIST (smartly and peacefully)! Don’t let the bullies target our peaceful and vulnerable neighbors. Besides, I don’t think the fake Rs give a hoot about most of what LAs do. I don’t care if it’s an ‘R’, ‘D’ or ‘I’ in the WH (aka ‘the Dump’) just as long as Trump and his family are sent packing. Let him go back to what he’s good at, which is fawning over the press, black sports stars, limousine liberals and the Hollywood types that he claims to detest now that he claims to be a Christian, Right-wing, Republican all of a sudden.

Generals Kelly and Mattis, I know you have a plan, please don’t let the Donald out of your sight. McMasters sounds like Bob now, you guys are our last hope. After the trailer trash meets Pennsylvania Ave. / Scaramucci mess, I don’t know what to think. What’s next, wet t-shirt contest at the White House fountain? 

[Craig Richmond, RLA]

J. Robert Wainer:

Perhaps your time would be best spent working on figuring out why you blindly support one of the nastiest and foul humans to ever walk the earth. It can’t be his accomplishments in office because he’s accomplished nothing but the creation of chaos. It can’t be his policy because we still see no sign of policy or a plan even. It certainly isn’t that he’s a conservative. My best guess is it must be the hatred, the bullying, the put-downs, the macho swaggering, the fear of women with real power, and the absolute jealousy and bitterness that he has towards the smart, solid, yet boring black dude who just left office that gets you so worked up.

BTW, Thanks, but no thanks on the mentoring thing; I’m good. But, I do question the appropriateness of asking a middle-aged LA who has more work than he can handle if he needs a mentor. I ‘ain’t-got –no’ BMW, but I’m definitely enjoying life. Funny, I’ve mentored lots of young LAs and students in my 28 years in the profession and I’ve never needed to ask one if they needed a mentor. But then again I probably don’t think of myself as highly as you do. I just let my list of happy paying clients/allied professionals and grateful junior LAs do the talking for me.

A landscape designer by the name of Andy Knauer was my first mentor -God rest his soul. I respected him because he would actually answer my questions and got a twinkle in his eyes when I challenged him. I was a brash twenty-something kid and he was an old German guy in his late seventies. The most important things he taught me was that I could hold my own with any LA, Architect, Civil or client, as long as I was prepared and I saw myself as equal to all of the SOBs in the conference room. What he taught me has allowed me to make a good living doing what I love to do. How can you be a mentor when you don’t have a coherent reason for why you believe what you believe?

If the stuff that you preach wasn’t so dangerous, it would be so easy to just ignore you. 

[Craig Richmond, RLA]

It’s funny but true. What’s even funnier is your response or should I say non-response. Instead of standing-up for president ‘look-at-me’, you’re basically saying, “Sure, all that stuff about the Trump presidency is true, but ordinary citizens Hillary and Obama blah-blah…blah.”

Bob (Red Hat) Logic

Bob: Yes, officer. I stabbed the poor little, old lady for volunteering to feed the hungry, but I HEARD Craig stole a bike when he was a pre-teen. We’re good right?

I’ve come to a conclusion; you guys aren’t Republicans/Conservatives, your Trumpians. You folks are followers of a liberal democrat conman. The real Rs would never go along with the trashing of our traditions. They would never sign off on causing unnecessary chaos in the military, sucking-up to Putin and allowing a foreign government (NATO ally or not) to come in and test out their new boots on American citizens. These are just a few things under Trumps watch that should be absolutely gut-wrenching to most Americans.

The tide is shifting Bob. Where will you stand when the real Republicans eject your boy out of office? I’ll bet you’ll be deleting more of your off-the-wall posts when the circus finally leaves DC.  

[Craig Richmond, RLA]

It’s looking like the future will not be bright for LAs or anybody else as long as the clown car is parked in front of the White House. After the crowd size foolishness, the travel ban fiasco, numerous embarrassing international appearances, all the shady Russian connections, Turkish government thugs in suits punting Turkish American protesters in the face (BTW on a lovely green lawn right down the street from where Jared, Ivanka, Barrack, Michelle and a bunch of other people you might know own homes-charming), announcing half-baked major public policy on Twitter, and all of the lies, we now have a new WH communications director with astonishingly ‘Trump-like’ communication skills. Am I dreaming or did the Donald just manage to appoint a guy as the communications pooh-bah that thinks it’s ok to cyber-bully the current chief of staff?  

All the while 30 plus percent of Americans think that president ‘look-at-me’ is doing a fine job and just needs more time. Somebody, please convince me that all of this chaos is a good thing or normal even. 

[Craig Richmond, RLA]

I can understand not wanting to keep a homeless person from peacefully laying down in a public space, but I wouldn’t think twice about giving a skateboarder more than the middle finger for chipping the edge off of a $100k custom seat wall. I guess it’s easy to make a stand for someone having fun as long as they’re not destroying your property.

So do what you can to connect with and provide comfort to the homeless. And build challenging skate parks in our communities. We could probably do what we need to do enrich our lives if we didn’t have such an enormous need for more aircraft carriers.

–Cheers

[Craig Richmond, RLA]

Generally, I try to be open-minded when a designer uses objects as an inspiration or to help generate a design idea, as long as it relates to the project. Most of the time when we try to mimic something, it just comes off as kind of hokey.  The problem comes when we try to be too literal as opposed to just capturing the essence or spirit of something.

It’s not easy to get something that reads in plan view to read in elevation or perspective, which is closer to how most of us humans view the world. So unless there’s an airport or high-rise near-by why bother. Besides is superimposing a botanically correct plant on to the land in concrete really creative? The design is already done by nature. Whenever I critique a student or junior designer that tries to pull off this kind of ‘design’, I always politely ask them if they can dig down a little deeper inside themselves.

With that said, I have to respect the artist because what she did was very daring for the time. I also believe there’s something for us to learn from projects like this. Anyway, who am I to throw stones? I have several projects built in that same area during around the same time period that no one is talking about in LA circles and I’m a landscape architect. So you go Patricia! The heck with what I have to say about you. 

[Craig Richmond, RLA]

There are some really interesting things happening with the Fair Park Lagoon project. I think it’s a cool study that probably shouldn’t have been built. When I first saw the model I thought it looked like the field dressing from a game animal that had been left by a puddle. Thank goodness it doesn’t read like that in the real life images. Can you imagine if this were built today with railing, etc.? My biggest problem is trying to buy the whole introduced eco-system pitch. Let’s just call it art because both of those pieces required a lot of trucks, grading, form work and tons of concrete/gunite to construct. This was not a project that treaded lightly on the land. I do appreciate Patricia Johanson’s work though.

The funny thing is that this was still a new project when I was an LA student at UTA. My Profs probably didn’t think much of the project because we must have driven by this project numerous times going to other sites and no one mentioned it. I guess it beats a dead body of water in the middle of town. So mission accomplished. 

[Craig Richmond, RLA]

I pretty much agree with what everyone has said so far. I’ve been a big cheerleader for those interested in entering Landscape Architecture. It wouldn’t be impossible to be successful, but it will be very hard at 41. I don’t know how rigorous LA programs are in the UK, but I think most US programs are still pretty intense. I couldn’t imagine pulling all-nighters for design studio, studying and taking the licensing exam as a mature person. It nearly killed me when I was in my twenties. But, I believe if you have the ability to create and are committed, you’ll breeze through the education phase. I believe that being older has some advantages in the academic environment.

If you are really serious about LA and you’re getting into it late in life, I would work towards getting the degree, getting experience, license, a couple more years of experience, then go out on your own and start a design/build company. The biggest catch is that if you don’t know how to sell, you’d better learn while you’re in school and working for someone else. Being entrepreneurial is probably the best way for you to fast track your career. 

Andrew is absolutely correct about the need for studio time. Going through a good grinding design studio can make the difference between an LA being able to be a designer or a production/administrative type. No offense, but I never get excited about drawing construction details, writing proposals or some long drawn-out report.

[Craig Richmond, RLA]

Here’s an idea: how about instead of the government giving away $20,000 for citizens to buy more stupid crap as you seemed to think was a good idea, the gov could pay for the solar panels that you think are so hard to install.

Sorry Bob, the wall is never going to be built. The liberal crook Trump threw that out as red meat to the hate and fear folks. What person living in modern times would think spending billions of dollars building a concrete wall though some of the most remote and inhospitable terrain in the world makes sense? You do realize that the bad guys have untold wealth and possible access to things like tunneling expertise, ultra light aircraft, catapults, numerous border crossing personnel, submarines, etc. to move products, money, weapons and people in and out. The wall was just another boogeyman tactic to get people like you to frothing about the opportunity to build a monument to hatred. As an educated person you must not care whether or not it makes sense.

[Craig Richmond, RLA]

From the guy who has to bring up Obama and Hillary constantly to defend Trump’s bad moves and decisions. Instead of talking about the grand accomplishments of the Great Negotiator teamed up with the republican houses…you’ve got bupkus. We get nothing but Donald wasting government time and money while he makes us all less secure. Just think about the governmental resources unnecessarily being consumed dealing with nonsense he is directly responsible for.

You actually still think this is a dem vs. repub thing. There were moments when I stood strongly behind Bush II and times I questioned Obama’s decisions. But one thing I can say is that neither one of them nor any previous president has embarrassed the US like Trump has. Every president has struggled until they get their sea legs and learn the job, but the toddler has been a disaster since day one. The only silver lining is that there are thinking, honest, patriotic republicans who are going to step up and stop this insanity. The wheels are already in motion. They love their kids and grandchildren just like everybody else and are not going to stand-by and watch hate and ignorance rule.

BTW, I would have a problem with Trump or any president giving $20,000 away to every citizen. Does that sound like a smart thing to do to you? I guess because I’m a liberal leaning LA, I’m supposed to believe in ‘free stuff’ and governmental giveaways. And you claim to be a conservative. You might be an undercover lib like the Donald.

Health Insurance “For Everybody” and the “Government Will Pay”

–Donald Trump

Headline: Red State 2017

[Craig Richmond, RLA]

You’ve said you were done with this thread before, yet you still come back to get more egg on your face. I thought you were done when you started deleting your previous questionable posts.

Of course it’s the powerless dems fault that Trump is getting nothing constructive done. It couldn’t possibly be that he spends his time doing things like watching cable news, tweeting, rallying, golfing and starting dumpster fires instead of learning how to do his job.

The worst thing of all is that the ugly toddler in the Oval Office has “grown ups” watching him stick forks into the electric outlets and all they can say is how cute he is.

[Craig Richmond, RLA]

That’s just great more deflection and no response to Mexico paying for the stupid medieval wall.

Reminder:
Obama and Clinton are not POTUS. Trump is the president and he’s caused nothing but chaos since he took office. Nothing is getting done while the government is left babysitting the president.

The US and the Russian government have had an adversarial relationship for a long time. I support the US. I don’t give a squat about Putin’s feelings. I guess you’re one of those people who bashed Obama, while praising Putin. Yes sir a real patriot. Sad.

[Craig Richmond, RLA]

Oh, I thought Mexico was going to pay for the stupid wall. I guess that was just more Tromp BS.

[Craig Richmond, RLA]

While the rest of the world is moving forward into the future with clean energy, our genius president is trying to revive the coal industry as coal burning electric plants convert to natural gas nationwide.

Well done looking like an obnoxious, spoiled 3-year-old in Brussels after the lovefest with the Saudis. It’s hilarious seeing people cheer Trump on while he sets his own ass on fire a couple of times per week. I can’t wait to see the results from months of incompetent leadership. There’s a basket load of important business not being address while the nation deals with Donald’s buffoonery.

“At what point do they start laughing at us, as a country?”

                                                                    — Donald J. Trump

[Craig Richmond, RLA]

Trump is causing landscape architects to not stand by their own words as they start to see the writing on the wall. How embarrassing.

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