[Jamie Chen]

I’ve read other articles that discuss how you can defend aesthetics, so long as you back it up with performative data. An area that manages stormwater in compliance to a code while also serving as a recreational amenity is double loading value onto a site. Code dictates that the developer must include it anyway; why not have it look good instead of letting a civil engineer have at it without oversight, producing a great big rectangle basin of blandness? That’s the purpose of having a landscape architect on a team early.

Or an article from a green roofing industry magazine; having a landscape architect early to put green roofs on the table well before installers are in as subs means that the structural loads are taken into account by the engineers and the roof slopes are modified by the architects. It’s all about saving time by eliminating change orders and time is money.

Insisting that daring, different, striking projects can be rented/sold at a premium per the developers’ target demographic because of our design vision is viable in this way. You must insist that you are a value add, not an afterthought.

I also believe that you have to produce drawings that contractors can quickly bid off of with accuracy in the beginning so you are not the source of deadline breaking change orders. I’ve worked in design build where I did take offs for the estimating department of the construction division as we regularly sub-ed for general contractors and as a result we saw a lot of different plans from a lot of different firms.

Some firms were specifying obsolete irrigation parts from catalogs over five years old. Substitution research took up time and effort for speculative bidding that we ultimately did not win. This is a lose-lose for everybody concerned. Some firms produced drawings with no proper line weight or grayscale rendering management such that the irrigation plans were a spaghetti mess of lines. I could not make heads or tails of what was a lateral or a hardscape score line. Some firms were so disconnected from the plant stock of major local nurseries such that it was simply impossible to bid because no plants of a new, fancy Monrovia sort were in production enough for a large tract development, for example. And yet others specified invasive species! That is not in the spirit of good environmental stewardship!

Readable drawings and keeping up to date with industry innovations are paramount. You have to be the indispensable expert that is the problem solver, not the problem maker. And in some construction packages, sadly, it is clear that some firms are the weak link.

I think addressing that would be a good start.

[Jamie Chen]

I have used AutoCAD at work. Rendering with Photoshop. As I have worked at smaller design-build, there have not been a need to learn 3D rendering. I’m teaching myself SketchUp.

[Jamie Chen]

BBC just did an article about modifying breakwaves into marine wildlife habitat: http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-41665459

[Jamie Chen]

I also found another studio with relevant work: http://www.scapestudio.com

Using oyster colonies to clean water: http://www.scapestudio.com/projects/oyster-tecture/

Installing breakwaters that prevent erosion upland and provide habitat: http://www.scapestudio.com/projects/living-breakwaters-competition/

These are just two. The studio has many relevant projects.

[Jamie Chen]

PWP did Sydney Harbor in Australia; the Barangaroo project.

http://www.pwpla.com/barangaroo

It has an ecological reserve zone as well as programmed spaces for tourists and local visitors as a park. 

[Jamie Chen]

Since this isn’t focused on concrete timelines (like studying for the LARE), perhaps you can incentivize your reading?

If it is a text with more words than images, you can set a goal for each chapter. Perhaps one a week, so you can digest?

Set aside a block of reading time that you schedule formally like for appointments and then do it! 

I incentivized myself by using an app called Habitica. It’s structured like a little video game where you make a little character Adventurer that get points rewarded for doing what you actually say you want to do and you lose points if you neglect to do your habit/task per day. As you accumulate points you ‘Level Up’. You can even join groups that would hold you accountable if you need the extra boost. It’s good for establish flossing and exercise habits, quitting smoking, and studying. 

[Jamie Chen]

The requirements depend on the province you plan to practice in.

The clarb.org website redirects here: http://www.bcsla.org/licensure/licensure-self-assessment-tool

This should help answer your question in more detail. 

[Jamie Chen]

In 2016 Houston’s local newspaper was already reporting the consequences of the decimation of Houston’s wetlands. 

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Houston-s-development-boom-and-reduction-of-8403838.php

By the time it became necessary for a developer to hire civil engineers, it is too late in the process. They should NEVER have touched that land. Not bought it, parceled it, filed it at whatever city/county departments. They chose to funnel human lives onto dangerous ground. They chose to speculate on low land. That’s blood money. 

Nobody had the political will to say to developers AND ignorant civilian homebuyers that this was hazardous ground, unfit for human habitation. 

Houston itself HAS NO ZONING. When it is allowed to build anything anywhere, people WILL. And then as a consequence, the lives of people who don’t know any better, who spent who knows how much of their lives working for wages to pay for it all… it’s gone. 

That’s what happened and that’s how it is. Until the states on the Gulf take a good hard look at themselves and actively save lives by telling speculators/developers NO, not on THIS ground, this will continue to happen. 

[Jamie Chen]

I find that if you can’t find anything pertinent to “landscape architecture” during searches then it means that you might if you just plugged in “architecture”. Unfortunately, the assumption is that what works for them must then work for us.

Plugging in ‘Wiley’ and ‘cad standards manual’ and I got this volume: http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0471703788.html 

And I suppose this works for more clarification: https://www.nationalcadstandard.org/ncs6/index.php

[Jamie Chen]

I think you should speak with the client; vines with flowers or seasonal leaf drop necessarily create a mess that needs cleaning up. Would they be fine with this? Flowers are lovely, of course, so many people are fine with cleaning up after flowers. Or maybe they have pollen allergies, so no flowers are the way to go. 

Anyway, Bougainvillea are classic SoCal plants. ‘San Diego Red’ or ‘Barbara Karst’ are common choices for color. Purple flowers: Clytostoma callistegioides. Red trumpet flowers: Distictis buccinatoria. Fragrance: Lonicera japonica ‘Halliana’

[Jamie Chen]

What sort of vine? Perennial or deciduous? Flowering okay, or just green leaves?

[Jamie Chen]

I just found a book review by ASLA of a text solely about phytoremediation:

https://dirt.asla.org/2016/02/25/its-time-to-take-phytoremediation-seriously/

Here is the author’s landscape firm website with further resources: http://offshootsinc.com/

[Jamie Chen]

On the biological/ecological scientific studies side there are cited works such as here: http://www.usask.ca/soilsncrops/conference-proceedings/previous_years/Files/2012/Repas_et_al.pdf related to phytoremediation. Different species are tested for their potential and effectiveness. Some searching using ‘phytoremediation’ should pull up results. Another interesting potential is the usage of mycoremediation; fungi. Of course, not too many people are versed in using fungi as landscaping. Some cross study with agricultural species could be attempted. 

Therefore a landscape architect can plan on using plants with a record of testing, with attention to the species suitability for the local climate of the site. Such areas would be necessarily not accessible, but designing a view garden/landscape to accentuate areas of a site where people can occupy in the manner of Japanese Shakkei is entirely possible. 

I’m interested in the criticism of constructed wetlands. Where there was no habitat prior, any habitat at all would be a net gain. Furthermore, a properly engineered wetland doing the clean up process naturally reduces pollution exposure vs. ducks wading in parking lot runoff and exposing themselves to antifreeze. 

[Jamie Chen]

That is Crassula ovata. My family grew it in filtered sunlight right next to the foundation of their house. Direct sun should be fine outdoors. 

The depth of the hole should 36″ to be safe. The plant does get to 6′ tall with age. 

[Jamie Chen]

You can do that too. It is a buildable solution.

However, in terms of labor cost (which is the biggest variable that increases total project cost) the time it would take to excavate down, leveling and fine grading, build out the wooden forms, pour, wait for the thicker concrete to cure, and then remove the forms, would be much greater than simply doing a surface pour like for parking lot planting islands or foundations. 

And then there is the risk that comes from having an enclosed planter. Even above ground planters have some form of drainage. A solid bowl risks the plant drowning if the irrigation fails and runs continuously. And the containment for roots might in the end be too shallow and the plant dies from lack of root growth, aeration, etc. as seen in photos here from uprooted trees: http://www.deeproot.com/blog/blog-entries/how-deep-do-tree-roots-really-grow

To dig down 42″ extra inches would not be too bad for a concrete contractor. To dig down 4 to 6 extra feet would be much more trouble. 

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