Tanya Olson

1.Architects that I know and like – specifically for projects that don’t have the budget for a full LA firm, but need site design and planting help – so trying to find a niche there that takes advantage of my low overhead (single-person office).
2. biologists and ecologists with the national park service, national forest service and Nature…[Read more]

What do you think that looks like organizationally speaking? Yes – been thinking about it for a while wondering if its too crazy to bring up….I think it could work….just don’t know how…..
More ideas?

ha!~ I’ll let you know when something interesting happens to me!

I agree! It would be very interesting to read about formative influences and life experiences. Get started, Nick! Find an interesting landscape architect and “biographize” them as Trace said!

the James Van Sweden is sort of a combination of both childhood and built works….

I don’t think they’re really autobiographies, but you could check out ‘Gardens are for People’ by Tom Church and ‘Gardens Make Me Laugh’ by James Rose.
More contemporary are the Ten Landscapes series published by Rockport (I think some of them are out of print, but you can find them used)- there are a number of them including Mario Schjetnan,…[Read more]

I’m sure lots of people will have input and you may not be able to proceed this way because of ‘assignment’ constraints….since it appears to be a heavily impacted site, with little or no connectivity for species movement (so a prairie remnant, really), why not intertwine all of the uses of the site? Could part of the prairie be intertwined with…[Read more]

What is the purpose of the preserve? Is it already owned publicly – is it a land trust, conservation easement, public park or what? Why does the site need to be more appealing to the public? Why are you trying to convince the donor to commit the entire amount at once? What kind of shape is the existing prairie in? What kind of maintenance is…[Read more]

interlibrary loan! Your local library can usually get any of the books from a university library. It only costs a couple of dollars for shipping, but you only get them for a month or so, so you need to plan ahead!

Repeating information is not plagiarism. Saying you wrote it (or designed it) is. I agree with some of the other replys – a web development company must have gotten a hold of your images.

I’m in the same situation – off work to raise kids now finally getting down to my exams.
My recommendation is to read the books they have listed on the study materials. I wouldn’t bother with the study materials that you can buy from Amazon (published by ppi). I got them and they are way harder than the tests – probably a waste of money. I don’t…[Read more]

Hello?! Any of Roberto Burle Marx’s gardens (Brazil) or Luis Barragan’s landscapes (Mexico). I would particularly love to see Marx’s personal gardens – just amazing texture color and modern sensibilites.

He may also be able to call himself a landscape architect if he is working under the supervision of another licensed landscape architect. Some firms call that Landscape Architect In Training other firms just call it junior landscape architect.
I have to say, there is a bit of a limbo for those of us who have finished our education and internship…[Read more]

Totally agree. Exclusion is akin to MD’s demanding that RN’s or medtechs not practice because they don’t have PhD educations.

So the elephant in the room is “What do we do about it?” How sacred of a cow is ASLA? Are professional membership organizations obsolete? It a network like this sustainable in the long term? Is this too hot of an item to post as its own thread?

It would be interesting to ask any of the LAs involved the Designed Landscape Forum which I understood…[Read more]

you’re well on your way to being licensed in every state! now for that darned CA irrigation section!

If you hear back from them will you post their reply as a new discussion please? Thanks!

Yes – laid off oct. 2008 – started own design business (not licensed yet) July 2009 – pretty steady 1/4 time work through January which isn’t too bad for just starting out, but I do have to look for projects within a 300-mile radius or so (the west is BIG!)

See the work of Joan Nassauer and the CIty of Maplewood MN. There was an article on them a couple of issues back in LAM. That is more suburban (older suburbs, though, so more dense than suburbs are now) – no curb and gutter had been installed yet so they have been able to utilize existing draininage ditches a bit.
One cool project is in…[Read more]

There are photos of the projects in my folio here on land8lounge. Let me know if I have to ‘friend’ you to look at them – I don’t think you have to. All of the construction details are with the firm I was working for during this project….I don’t have any pics of the mitigated wetlands though, only the stormwater wetlands.

Your project is…[Read more]