Landscape Architecture for me started before I went to formally start my MLA at UCT. The firm I worked for had a principle landscape architect who had been around for +/- 40 years. The firm was well established, and was well known and still is in that part of the world amoungst all kinds of professionals, architects, engineers, planners, developers. Developers often contacted my boss as a first resort, and international clients flew out to south africa to meet my boss on his terms.
Other landscape architects are also well known for being an absolute nuisance on any professional team. It seems to me that the profession of LA has lots to offer within the development process, and all other professions and developers realise this but sometimes might want to recognise this because of a bad experience with a particular LA. The onus is on us to represent LA in a respectful way, thats the only way we can gain respect amongst other professionals. It entails groundbreaking but realistic thinking having a good grounding in what can be realistically achieved on the ground and thinking wholistically about the effects that our professional work has on other professions. Opposition is experienced when we don’t work with other professionals. We’re a profession on the rise, and still very young in the majority of countries around the world, and we can’t really afford to step on toes at this early part of our professional establishment within the built and natural environment.
