Thomas J. Johnson

This is turning into a pissing match which is not my intention. I did not say “the entire” point of CLARB is to minimize competition. The point of CLARB / LARE is to establish standard requirements, one of witch in most states is to apprentice under a licensed Landscape Architect for two to three years. I believe this requirement is beneficial to…[Read more]

Engineers and Architects aren’t busy either… I don’t think we’ll experience a shortage of Licensed Landscape Architects in the foreseeable future. If anything the ASLA / CLARB system is working perfectly. It’s protecting existing licensed Landscape Architects from the competition that would exist if every unemployed designer decided to take the…[Read more]

In Norway, yes.

In Southern California, no.

But they are “cool” everywhere…

You were able to take the LARE right out of school in ID!? Most states require two years, that’s pretty standard. Be happy you can get licensed so quickly in ID and stop complaining about what the rest of us have to go through…

What other states can you take the LARE right out of school…?

I mean that I would almost guarantee that there are people from CLARB / LARE reading these posts… and maybe taking notes.

As an unemployed BSLA I’m riffraff right now too. There is no way I could take the test, short of beg, steal or borrow the money from someone else…

A planted swale at 1% will not drain. If the vignette asks for 2%, why would 1% be acceptable?

I haven’t taken the LARE yet but I know well enough not to offend someone who is going to be grading my test.

The only issue I see with the test is that it is not held more often, like quarterly. Then again, I hope to pass it on the first shot… crossing fingers. I think the testing frequency and costs are designed to keep the riffraff out of…[Read more]

Techniques I’ve used:

CAD Printed on Vellum rendered with marker = Beautiful, accurate and time intensive. If plan changes, whole thing has to be recolored.

CAD plotted to PDF layers rendered in Photoshop = Beautiful, accurate, fast-ish and relatively easy to update changes. The only problem is that you have to be very deliberate with your CAD…[Read more]

That would be excellent! I’d also like to see Land Archs work spaces recreated with historic tools and drawings. It would be an interesting display to see desks from the mid-evil period, Renaissance, 1800’s, early 1900’s, 20’s, 40’s, 60’s, 80’s and today…

There are all kinds of things you could do with an L.A. museum… fun to think about…

From my perspective, if you’re spending your time perfecting a 3D tree, you are not “DESIGNING“. My concept of landscape architecture is based in understanding and designing spacial experiences. I don’t think there is anything on the LARE about 3D trees… if you’re geeking-out on 3D trees that’s cool but I don’t feel that it will enhance your…[Read more]

Need a new Junior Designer…? 🙂 I can be there by Monday

Don’t get me wrong, I love CAD. It’s an essential tool. I love it’s precision and the ability to easily update drawings and exchange information with other people. Nothing beats it for production. But it’s not where I like to start.

If I’m going to design anything, whether it be a park or a bench, I start with pencil and paper. How can you take a…[Read more]

Hand drawing is irreplaceable. You cannot think or design as quickly on a computer because it is too rigid. With a computer, you have to think, “how can I get the computer to perform this function in order to illustrate this idea?” With hand rendering, there is an immediate connection. If you can see it in your minds eye, you can draw it on paper.…[Read more]

What about making it an “app” so that you can see significant landscapes in the vicinity of your your current location? It could include information such as when it was built, who designed it, what awards it won, etc. Maybe the app could create a walking tour of landscapes within a 2 mile radius. That would be pretty sweet…

Nice! Thank you for the addition sites… I knew I was missing some important ones.

Tom Oslund has an exceptional design studio in Minneapolis. He lectured at Colorado State in 2008 and I had the good fortune of enjoying dinner with him and the other leaders of the SCASLA. Very nice guy. He does work all over the country but one project in MN that sticks out in my memory is the I35 Bridge reconstruction and memorial. If I were to…[Read more]

You probably won’t find a site like that for free…Creating that kind of data base and search engine is an expensive endeavor. There is a program called Horticopia that enables you to search based on form, color, seasonal bloom, soil, water, etc, etc. It’s a great program for finding plants appropriate for your region but even Horticopia doesn’t…[Read more]

This ought to get you pointed in the right…[Read more]

The car is rad. It looks like a Mercedes-Maserati-Cadi-Charger hybrid… Classy muscle.

I agree with Amy’s observation about the trees. If I came across them on a site, I’d want to trim up those odd branches.

The people are too white… My eyes get stuck on them. Is there anyway to add a bit of color to them to mellow them out without…[Read more]