Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘PRACTICE’ Category

ON-RAMPS, ON TIME

Posted in EDUCATION, ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE, FEATURES, PEOPLE, PRACTICE, STUDENTS, tagged , , , , , , , , , on May 19, 2020| 1 Comment »

BY TIMOTHY A. SCHULER

Landscape architects can do more than talk about diversity—they can act.

FROM THE MAY 2020 ISSUE OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE.

 

The high school students were pretending to be plants. They crouched in front of giant, wall-sized pieces of parachute cloth, china markers in hand, and slowly grew, black lines following suit. Recalling the movement of the prairie grasses just outside, they waved and swayed and curled in on themselves, a collective interpretive dance that evoked the native grasses and wildflowers that they had been studying all morning. Quickly a mass of black lines became a monochromatic prairie, a temporary mural inspired by the small patch of native grassland visible from the hallway window.

Leading the drawing exercise was Erin Wiersma, an artist and associate professor in the art department at Kansas State University. Wiersma is best known for her massive biochar “drawings,” which she makes by dragging huge sheets of paper across freshly burned prairie. The exercise at J.C. Harmon High School, located in the largely Hispanic Kansas City, Kansas, neighborhood of Argentine, was part of Grassland Interview, an interdisciplinary art and ethnography project created in collaboration with the landscape architect Katie Kingery-Page, ASLA, the associate dean of Kansas State’s College of Architecture, Planning, and Design. (more…)

Read Full Post »

ASLA 2020: JOIN US IN MIAMI

Posted in ASLA, CITIES, ONLINE ONLY, PRACTICE, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on May 7, 2020| Leave a Comment »

BY BRADFORD MCKEE

Miami Beach Soundscape Park by West 8. Photo by Robin Hill.

Registration opened yesterday for the 2020 ASLA Conference on Landscape Architecture, which runs October 2 to October 5 in Miami Beach—a place rich with urgent landscape, climate, and water issues to confront, not to mention turquoise waves and a lot of fun amid the refreshing Atlantic breezes. As ever, if you book early, through June 9, you save on the registration fee (up to $300 off the on-site registration fee for professional members, if you book lodging in hotels where ASLA has reserved rooms for the event). Besides the many colleagues you look forward to seeing each year, there will be 120 ways to educate yourself and earn professional development hours in programs, field sessions, deep-dive inquiries, the invigorating general session, the ASLA awards, and the huge ASLA EXPO bustling with your favorite products, services, programs, and people.

ASLA has measures in place to ensure attendees a safe and enjoyable meeting, with the uncertain factors of the novel coronavirus pandemic first in mind. In a recorded message to prospective attendees, ASLA President Wendy Miller, FASLA, said, “These are not normal times, and this will not be a normal conference. But as of today, we are proceeding and adapting our plans for this fall.”

The ASLA staff is working closely with local meeting and tourism officials, convention industry experts, and the host chapter, ASLA Florida, to monitor guidance for large gatherings regarding group sizes and distancing provided by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and state and local agencies. If the conference proceeds as planned, registrants who find they later wish to cancel will receive refunds minus a $100 processing fee. However, after August 10, registration fees are not refundable. Tickets for special events and field sessions are not refundable. Hotel deposits will be refunded if reservations are canceled three days before your arrival—check details with your hotel.

If the conference must be canceled, your registration fee will be fully refunded, as will the processing fee and costs of tickets to special events. Hotels will also refund your deposit. For airfares, you should check with your airline about reimbursement or credit policies.

Miller expressed optimism that ASLA can gather in Miami Beach within the bounds the pandemic imposes. “If you’re a conference veteran, you know how powerful the experience can be,” she said. “And we are committed to bringing that experience to our members again this year.”

Read Full Post »

BUILD IT RIGHT

Posted in ASLA, CONSTRUCTION, DETAILS, ONLINE ONLY, PRACTICE, THE CLIENT, tagged , , , , , , , , , on April 23, 2020| 1 Comment »

BY ZACH MORTICE

Image courtesy ASLA.

A long-planned guide on construction documents for landscape architects is aimed at experienced and emerging professionals alike.

 

This week, ASLA’s Professional Practice Committee has released  The Landscape Architect’s Guidelines for Construction Contract Administration Services, which offers practitioners guidance to ensure that landscape projects are constructed in accordance with their contract documents. The guide is especially aimed at younger practitioners and emerging professionals starting their own firms, who may have less experience executing built work. “We decided that what we really needed was something that provided someone who is opening a business a basic understanding of where the risks and liabilities, as well as the responsibilities, lay,” says (William) Dwayne Adams Jr., FASLA, an Arizona-based landscape architect, and the editor of the guide.

The guide is arranged chronologically through the life of a project, and it presents the construction process from the perspective of not just landscape architects, but also the client and the contractor. Adams says that construction contract administration responsibilities often get delegated down to younger practitioners without much experience, and because of this, it’s necessary to provide greater context on what project partners are working through. “So what you have is a very parochial view of the world, that the landscape architect is pre-eminent in all the matters of site construction,” he says. But in reality, “you’re a team member, and you need to know what the other members of your team do.”

(more…)

Read Full Post »

CAREERS ON PAUSE

Posted in ONLINE ONLY, PEOPLE, PRACTICE, SCHOOLS, STUDENTS, UNIVERSITY, tagged , , , , , , , on April 14, 2020| 2 Comments »

BY TIMOTHY A. SCHULER

A panel discussion hosted by the Boston Society of Landscape Architects and moderated by Jack Ahern, FASLA, offered guidance to students entering the workforce. Image courtesy Timothy A. Schuler.

The graduating class of 2020 finds itself in limbo.

 

Even before the novel coronavirus sent the world into lockdown, Afrouz Rahmati planned to finish the final semester of her master’s in landscape architecture remotely. A third-year MLA candidate at the University of Maryland (UMD), Rahmati had an internship lined up at a nonprofit parks organization in Los Angeles, where her family lives. The plan was to spend the spring working on a regional-scale greenway project and finishing her thesis, which focuses on the intersection of landscape architecture and gerontology.

To work in the United States, however, Rahmati needed authorization for what’s known as pre-completion optional practical training (OPT). OPT allows international students to accept temporary employment in their fields of study. Rahmati grew up in Isfahan, Iran. She worked as an architect before emigrating to the United States in 2017, when she enrolled in the landscape architecture program at UMD.

By March 2020, Rahmati’s OPT authorization still had not arrived. By the time it did, the country was fully in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic. The organization that had offered Rahmati the internship—which she preferred to keep confidential—e-mailed to say that things were uncertain, but that she could maybe join them in the summer. She hasn’t heard from them since. Now she is applying to full-time positions, but is finding that most employers are also unresponsive. Rahmati worries about what will happen if she can’t find a job. Foreign students have just three months following graduation to secure employment in their fields of study and apply for post-completion OPT—a timeline that now feels alarmingly short. Rahmati says the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has yet to announce any changes or updates to the OPT program’s rules.

The transition from college or graduate school into a professional landscape architecture career is one of trepidation but also buoyant possibility. But for the graduating class of 2020, it’s as if a giant pause button has been hit. As cities remain under orders to shelter in place, firms of all sizes are halting the hiring process. Summer internships have been canceled. Recruiters have gone quiet. Students on the verge of graduating now find themselves in a kind of extended intermission, a limbo in which they can neither remain in the cozy world of their universities nor make the leap into professional practice. (more…)

Read Full Post »

NEW LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE PODCASTS

Posted in ASLA, INTERVIEW, ONLINE ONLY, PEOPLE, PRACTICE, STUDENTS, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on April 9, 2020| Leave a Comment »

BY ZACH MORTICE

Image courtesy ASLA.

In the podcast world, landscape architects are nonnative species—you can find podcasts about other design professions, but landscape architecture is by comparison low profile in this exploding media. This month, two landscape architecture podcasts are launching, one of which focuses on emerging professionals. (more…)

Read Full Post »

ART DIRECTOR’S CUT, APRIL 7

Posted in CITIES, ECOLOGY, ENVIRONMENT, ONLINE ONLY, PARKS, PEOPLE, PHOTOGRAPHY, PRACTICE, REGION, tagged , , , , , on April 7, 2020| Leave a Comment »

The things our art director, Chris McGee, hated to leave out of the current issue of LAM.

Photo by David Godshall, ASLA.

From “The Wild World of Terremoto” in the April 2020 issue by Timothy A. Schuler, about the playful, protean, and punk rock work of California’s Terremoto.

“In Terremoto’s world.”

–CHRIS MCGEE, LAM ART DIRECTOR

You can read the full table of contents for April 2020 or pick up a free digital issue of the April LAM here and share it with your clients, colleagues, and friends. As always, you can buy this issue of Landscape Architecture Magazine at more than 250 bookstores, including many university stores and independents, as well as at Barnes & Noble. You can also buy single digital issues for only $5.25 at Zinio or order single copies of the print issue from ASLA. Annual subscriptions for LAM are a thrifty $59 for print and $44.25 for digital. Our subscription page has more information on subscription options.

Read Full Post »

APRIL LAM: LANDSCAPE FOR LIFE

Posted in CONSTRUCTION, ECOLOGY, ENVIRONMENT, IN THE ISSUE, INTERVIEW, MATERIALS, ONLINE ONLY, PARKS, PHOTOGRAPHY, PLAYGROUNDS, PRACTICE, SCHOOLS, WATER, WORKSTATION, tagged , , , , , , on April 1, 2020| 1 Comment »

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

FOREGROUND

The Bricks Are Back (Materials)
A beloved theater and public plaza are reimagined for accessibility and diversity.

Worked Up (Workplace)
Working on two Indiana campus sites for a hometown company, DAVID RUBIN
Land Collective balances corporate identity with a sense of place.

FEATURES

 The Wild World of Terremoto
Terremoto is a young firm in Los Angeles betting that the future depends on redesigning practice
along with the Southern California landscape.

Fair Play
Working inside the Milwaukee Public Schools system, Pam Linn, FASLA, is rolling out an equitable model
for upgrading dozens of Milwaukee’s dreary schoolyards and playgrounds.

Hell of Fun
Montreal-based Claude Cormier + Associés hurdles design obstacles with a sly sense of humor and vibrant colors, but it only looks easy. It’s not.

In honor of World Landscape Architecture Month, the entire April digital issue is available for FREE, and you can access it here. As always, the April issue covers a wide swath of the work landscape architects do designing equitable schoolyards, playful public spaces, community-oriented corporate campuses, and unexpectedly wild gardens. Be sure to take a look at ASLA’s #WLAM2020 and #LifeGrowsHere programs and initiatives aimed at promoting the profession and how you can participate. We will continue to post new stories all month on the impacts of COVID-19 on the profession of landscape architecture here and abroad.

You can buy Landscape Architecture Magazine online. Single digital issues are available for only $5.25 at Zinio or you can order single copies of the print issue from ASLA. Annual subscriptions for LAM are a thrifty $59 for print and $44.25 for digital. Our subscription page has more information on subscription options.

Keep an eye out here on the website, on the LAM Facebook page, and on our Twitter feed (@landarchmag) for more updates on COVID-19 impacts, #WLAM2020, and fresh journalism on the profession of landscape architecture.

Credits: “Fair Play,” Colin Boyle/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Via Imagn Content Services, LLC; “Hell of Fun,” Cyril Doisneau; “The Wild World of Terremoto,” Stephen Schauer; “The Bricks Are Back,” Meghan Montgomery/Built Work Photography; “Worked Up,” Hadley Fruits. 

Read Full Post »

Older Posts »