[Edward Flaherty]

I’d like to add the following as context to my original post.

In the 50+ years I have been happily involved in landscape architecture education and landscape architecture practice across the USA and around the world, I have seen that our profession is very heavily design oriented–if I may share my opinion–even lopsided with design often pushed to impractical excess.

Impractical? Not buildable technically. Not maintainable for longer than a year. Not affordable for the available budget.

In the last decades I have seen this design excess expand–if I may again share my opinion–such that any design idea is ‘automatically’ good and not questioned regarding practicality.

The five items listed in my first post are items fairly simple to summarily teach and go a long way toward giving any design defensible gravitas.

[Edward Flaherty]

Thumbs up, Walter! 🙂

[Edward Flaherty]

1. Travel for fun? Look online for regions where landscape offices are so busy all they need are warm bodies for production. Of course you need to know how to produce; or,

2. Practice for a career–take on the austerity and practice in your home state to get licensed/registered before you hit the road. Registered/licensed in the USA opens doors around the world.

Best of luck.

[Edward Flaherty]

Break it out like this:

Either,

1. Travel for fun? Look online for regions where landscape offices are so busy all they need are warm bodies for production. Of course you need to know how to produce; or,

2. Practice for a career–take on the austerity and practice in your home state to get licensed/registered before you hit the road. Registered/licensed in the USA opens doors around the world.

Best of luck.

[Edward Flaherty]

Please bring me up to date on what you needed then and what you need now. Please do it via this address: eflaherty at mac dot com. Thank you and kind regards.

[Edward Flaherty]

Noted 31Dec2015 that no one answered your request. Still interested…or…?

[Edward Flaherty]

Nothing personal here to anyone who has failed any section of the test.  Please re-read my first sentence. Again.

There is another side to a fail and that is that either a person’s own preparation or that person’s education did not come close to addressing the basics required for practicing landscape architecture.  Look hard at yourself and how you have been taught.

There is no automatic entitlement here for a passing grade.  Be harder on your instructors at school.

[Edward Flaherty]

Henry is helping you, Alissa, to understand that landscape architecture design does not occur only in your mind, on your drawing board or in your contract documents.

It actually fulfills itself in the construction and following maintenance.  If these do not interest you, then there is no question of sustainability, there is no future for you in landscape architecture.  Great design needs people who know how to build it, solve its problems during construction and nurture it through its life.

Hope this has been helpful.  Over many years, I have seen bad design come out of an office and get ‘fixed’ in construction and maintenance; and I have seen great design get lost during construction and maintenance.  The more you understand the people and ways of construction and maintenance, the better chance you will have to see your design become a living, thriving reality.

[Edward Flaherty]

Please consider the following regarding the planting along new highways:

First and foremost–repair the landscape that existed before the surface was ripped open.  Doesn’t that make sense?  It does especially if the original condition is ‘natural’.  

Second–do not attempt to distract the drivers with detailed fluffiness.  Driving is dangerous.  Movement requires attention.  Drivers should not be distracted by planting detail that is better appreciated when the viewer is not moving–that is, at rest.  Doesn’t that make sense, too?

My two cents worth.  Cheers.

[Edward Flaherty]

Hi Kelly and all recent grads, I’ve interviewed a lot of recent graduates–having either MLA only or BLA only, some without internship experience.  In the end, at the first interview it does depend on personalities of each on the day, at the hour…but…but, you, Kelly, especially since you are interviewing in your own home town, you can tip the odds to be more in your favor–here is how.

1. Carefully assess your own strengths and weaknesses–summarize them down to three sound bite strengths and three sound bite weaknesses.  And make one more list of three–what you expect to learn from the office in the first year.

2. Identify your sources of job openings–web, newsprint, cold call.

3. Work your sources hard.

4. With your list fixed, do two things: call the office receptionist and ask questions about the job needs and then drop by unannounced before you apply or get offered an interview.  At that visit, greet the receptionist on the guise of checking out the neighborhood and how you would get there if you worked there.  Once inside make friends.  Try to learn about the mood of the office and more about the job.  Try to find out who will interview you and hire you.  Have coffee with the receptionist or an intern that might already be working there.

5. Then back home review your strengths and weaknesses against what you have learned about office and its staff.  Double check the office and staff online.  Now you can customize your resume and portfolio to each office, finalize your package and prepare to submit yourself as a potential employee.

Knowledge is strength.  Inform yourself about your potential employers.  In a sense you are going there to learn.  It is easier to learn if you respect their design and respect their approach to work and staff.  Again, your knowledge of all involved is your strength, your advantage.  Hard reconnoitering pays off.

All the best,

Ed

http://flahertylandscape.wordpress.com/

 

[Edward Flaherty]

I hear you, Trace One…when I went to school, the stuff they presented about project process, project management, construction management was the driest, least interesting.  

When I actually starting doing that work, I found it dynamic and challenging.  It is that part of our work upon which I focus The 23 Club story.

…oh, and there is some humor…it emerges here and there to keep it light.  It is like building a major project in a foreign country with foreign rules.  You need the laughs just to get by!  That’s life. 🙂

[Edward Flaherty]

In our human world experience, there are two: shelter and non shelter (in the largest sense, the landscape).  

Shelter and non shelter are connected by landscape architecture and communications technology.  

I’ve just lost my train of thought…

Ed Flaherty

[Edward Flaherty]

Teletubbies…now that is a landscape of good times!

🙂

Landscapes and gardens that make us smile?  How does that work?

🙂

[Edward Flaherty]

I must question this list and warn that more careful site research must be done.  The trees, most obviously in question from this list include:

Albizzia julibrissin (Albizzia lebbek yes but julibrissin, no)

Dracena draco 

Jacaranda mimosifolia

This is not a list of ‘cast iron’ trees that can b successfully planted anywhere in Al Ain, Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

Please visit these places and observe the successful street and garden trees to make your plant list.  Same for shrubs.  Anything short of that is a disservice to the profession of Landscape Architecture.

Kind regards to all.

[Edward Flaherty]

Tension found in the juxtaposition of peace and threat…thanks for sharing that observation, BP.  

Now if we turn that into a design challenge for how to bring drama and tension into design as a sustainable emotional experience in the garden and landscape…interesting mental exercise; but I don’t think it works in the actual building of it.

By that, I mean I don’t think it works in real life. Unless it is drama as a folly.  An artificial imposition.  Comments?

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