J. Robert (Bob) Wainner

Robert: I played piano all my life (with a nice big lapse in the middle) took it up again during the planning years, and got into the second field (really multimedia vs. performance) approaching retirement. That gave my seniorhood another outlet to mix with wisps of design work, which I highly recommend for those further down the road than…[Read more]

Jonathan, I sense your frustration but in response to the “Neither of those designers ever dealt with the great recession in the most fragile period of their careers (aka the beginning),” there is a lot more to tell but I spared the readers.
Two recessions hit me (and HARD), one being exactly right after I graduated in ’74, another severe one in…[Read more]

Wow Bob you’re up early. Not meaning to thread-jack into another topic but the numbers you gave are interesting. I also had a lot of group homes, elderly, and multi-family work that I don’t “show” on my page I have stashed if needed. I saved the technical drawings in miniature but these projects are hard to photograph and were always more a…[Read more]

Our own LANewsDigest had an article in the last issue giving as close to a “state of things” as we can get from surveying our own profession, and it is described as “tepid.”
https://www.asla.org/land/LandArticle.aspx?id=49538
Of course, that is not a prediction. And it’s hard to get a pulse anyway, when there are wide variations in focus and size…[Read more]

Recommending service of some kind to get help (like the G.I. bill) is an opening to further discussion. But that was not the general understanding of the “free to all” idea that people having trouble with what they already borrowed seemed to mean when they demonstrated for loan forgiveness. I might have missed it, but didn’t hear any offers to do…[Read more]

There’s no way just “taxing the rich more” would cover this. And since the lenient loan system has already fattened universities, proliferated faculties and led to crazy levels of building projects (at least around here), this proposal could have horrible effects. I’m thinking all the way to a situation where a junior college or 4-year degree has…[Read more]

I wondered if maybe they put assorted similar projects together to form a resource book for towns needing some templates to guide writing or revising ordinances or to set out standards for future developments… but I guess I could be way off….There are too many existing fellow governments to get guidance from.  So I suspect it’s more likely a…[Read more]

Just a little insert on something that caught my attention by accident: I flipped the t.v. remote a few days ago, and stumbled into the program “The Desert Speaks” on public t.v. Mostly that program has a laid-back host who goes out to various places in the southwest and S. American countries where he explores some part of nature with a local…[Read more]

Robert, I also was licensed under the UNE although the state required 3 years’ experience to qualify for it at the time. My main concern here in addition to the impact of recessions on hiring in general, is that there are whole states in this union, where finding such firms with 3 experienced mentors working together would be much harder, because…[Read more]

You said it better than I did…. I wondered a bit if it could be a limiting pigeonhole in the wrong firm but on the other hand, they know what her background is coming in and must be interested. It’s bound to occur to somebody there, now or later, this would be a built-in way around the hassle of hiring outside temporary contractors, or…[Read more]

But is thinking/design time from human brains any quicker?. And is there really that much less time involved in computer drafting than competent hand drafting of the bygone era? It has advantages in neatness and ease of revisions and to relay to a dropbox etc. but I hope fees are not being pressured by clients thinking “oh, you guys have computers now.” 

I would suspect the cost might be compared to one of the commercial monster “billboards” that have evolved (x a factor of 2?) since it has tower elements plus a heavy supported horizontal metal element, if you can track that down. Or a giant amusement park gateway or 1/2 a bridge of some kind? That’s a wild ballpark approach if you can’t track…[Read more]

It’s natural to want to get a license early in life, but the whole point of experience is to have it AFTER training….although some states will give partial credit for undergrad job experience. I was on a state board and new grads were always “pushing” for early admission to the exam, but it’s not just an academic training issue. There is value…[Read more]

This is to the “what should I do”? – Again, try and imagine yourself in the “real world” of LA…and realize they do select plants and inspect installations, but rarely to never get involved in the “care taking.” On the other hand, if you go into horticulture, you may not get to design as much or as often, but there are roles that involve design…[Read more]

A master’s based on a field change may not guarantee a quick jump either and there’s a loss of technical depth if what you really want to do is studio work (depends on the school whether they really emphasize remedial work for field changers or not). I did notice in working as a city planner, that a lot of people had geography backgrounds and a…[Read more]

Frankly, for reasons we’ve discussed before, even if sponsored by other interests, I hope it’s the start of a trend.

I think we are supposed to know which is appropriate, how much, and where, etc. then articulate the programmable space. It reminds me of that other topic “food for thought (or not).”

I just found it confusing. What was the writer really advocating? (One commenter tried to translate it but I’m still not sure). Isn’t it exactly the urban lovers who want to save the city by making it more habitable by including both walkable and green spaces? They aren’t advocating some moratorium on new buildings, not as I understand it.

Thanks for that…I might use it on my junior college students this very week (introduction to site planning in an arch. technology associate’s degree program). A few of the current class are thinking about going on into 4 year degrees in some related field. I just wish in truth that L.A.s weren’t only occasionally, but more routinely, involved in…[Read more]

Great reference article, but in a way it’s even more about satisfying one’s OWN “tipping point,” because the great majority of the market remains the same (not being clear what makes quality) all the way through life, so you can’t count on fame and fortune no matter how hard you work, if that’s what you’re working for. You have to feel that the…[Read more]