Landscape Architecture Magazine

U.S. Land Port of Entry, Warroad, Minnesota. Landscape by Coen + Partners; architecture by Julie Snow Architects. Photo by Frank Ooms

For landscape architects, the signs from the General Services Administration could scarcely be more encouraging. There is a push by Christian Gabriel, ASLA, the national design director for landscape architecture at GSA, to expand the pool of talent available to his office, the Public Buildings Service, and to make the selection process more competitive. But in a bureaucracy, there’s only so much Gabriel can do; if you’re interested in working  with the agency for the first time, the process can seem opaque.

Tomorrow, you can take less than an hour to learn more about it. On Thursday, February 6, at 3 p.m. Eastern time, Gabriel and his colleague Joseph Imamura, ASLA, a contracting specialist at the GSA, are holding a 45-minute webinar to help demystify where you find GSA project announcements, what kinds of project delivery the agency relies on, and how to hack your way through the procurement thicket. 

Gabriel says the agency will soon pilot a new kind of short selection process that would prequalify landscape architecture firms as a way of involving more of them in the 9,000 or so small projects the agency does each year—not all of them landscape architecture projects, but many with site needs or security requirements to fulfill. Register here to join the webinar.