Landscape Architecture has a PR Problem

Zach Curry So, what’s the average size of the cohorts in your program?

Alexis Bernstein Ooh, average size is such a fun question. 

Gillian Ford My cohort began with 15 the first semester, and now we’re at 12 ending the third semester.  

Alexis Bernstein We're at 7 and a half.

Gillian Ford Programs are smaller every year. But I think that, you know, that's the nature of landscape architecture right now. In general, the public at large doesn't really understand what it is. If you asked a landscape architect in downtown Denver on one side of the street what they did, and you asked a landscape architect on the other side of the street what they did, they would give you completely different answers.

And I think that is symptomatic of the industry, as well. It’s not a problem, but I do think that it speaks to why people are confused about what it is that we do and how there's a bit of a PR problem happening.

Alexis Bernstein A few weeks ago, in one of our electives, we were discussing landscape architecture's PR problems. 

Gillian Ford I think that speaks to why enrollment is down across the country and why someone like myself–who probably could have found my way to landscape architecture much sooner– didn't: I just simply didn't know that it existed. I knew that these places and spaces that I loved were created, but I thought they were created by other disciplines. Figuring out that this type of discipline existed took me several years. It actually took some really intentional investigation on my part. 

Sam Clemente What other opinions came from that conversation with landscape architecture as a PR problem? I'm so interested. 

Alexis Bernstein Oh, gosh. 

Gillian Ford It was quite heated, but productive. 

Alexis Bernstein Yeah. What came out of that? Some of the biggest things that came out of it was that, over time landscape architecture just started grabbing everything and everything started falling under the umbrella of it.

Gillian Ford The big picture was that, at one point, in the late 18th-early 19th century, landscape architecture had an iconic role in society. The person who was the landscape architect was the person who could walk into the bar and say, "I'm the landscape architect,” and everyone would say, “Oh, shit I'm going to come sit with you.”

At that point in time, that person could be a master of several disciplines. The amount of information knowable about architecture, engineering, land use, botany, ecology was available to a person to read in the encyclopedia. You could read it all and you could master it–and some people did. These were the landscape architects of the time. 

Today there's such a depth of information in each of those fields that one person cannot master it all. This is an issue - or maybe better put - an identity crisis -  because as landscape architects we still want to be like our predecessors and master all trades. We want to be the general expert in the room, but then we also  know how to collaborate with the civil engineer, the ecologist, the botanist, the planner, or the policy maker. 

So, you go into the room and say, “I'm a landscape architect,” thinking you know more than enough, when you know just enough. We want to be the general expert in the room, but then we also lack awareness, preparation, or confidence to effectively collaborate with the civil engineer, the ecologist, the botanist, the planner, or the policy maker. 

It’s up to us as landscape architects to learn more about how to be leaders and collaborators, working with all the different disciplines like conducting an orchestra. As students, we need more exposure about how to work with all the different disciplines. And I don't think that our curriculum is doing that justice. And probably other curricula are not doing that justice either.

What does it look like for a curriculum to be teaching landscape architects how to be interdisciplinary leaders? What would it mean for our industry to admit that we are multidisciplinary in the first place?

Alexis Bernstein And say, I know enough about ecology to know that I need to bring an ecologist in because it's important. Or, I could pull up a diagram of a rain garden, but it's not going to be site-specific, and say “I need to bring in someone else.”

Gillian Ford Yes exactly, and doing so in a way that doesn't make landscape architecture obsolete. Because in those situations, somebody is going to say, “Well, if an ecologist can do it, then why do I need you?” We have to be able to answer those questions. Otherwise, landscape architecture is not going to exist in 50 years.

Alexis Bernstein So, the accreditation standards are up for review, and they're looking for student feedback. I think that it's going to be really interesting to see what students say is important to be an accredited landscape architect, especially at this time when technology is changing so much and when governance in America is insane.

Landscape Architecture Students Create Award-Winning Space for Local Elementary School

I think it's going to be super interesting how these accreditation standards reflect what everybody is looking for in this field. And I'm very passionate about this because I've used them in conversations with so many professors and it helps me understand why our program is structured the way it is. 

Gillian Ford As Lexi mentioned, we have had conversations with our faculty this semester where they have said, “Well, this class is this way because the bursar says this is the way that they have to schedule it.” 

So, we are discussing the important, difficult topics, but if you can't move beyond the bursar’s scheduling requirements, then how are you supposed to get to some of these deeper ideas? So I’m hopeful for the possibilities the accreditation updates could bring as a stepping stone to more opportunities.

Alexis Bernstein I'm really excited. I'm going to push it pretty hard. 

Sam Clemente Well, that piece is about how all the different disciplines within landscape architecture are like being diluted. 

Gillian Ford Yeah, and I think the point is that it doesn't have to be diluted, right? The point is, and unfortunately, that it’s more about aesthetics. The conversation is too shallow. And I think that the point of our class conversation was where can we create greater depth and where can we actually create expertise for ourselves. What can we claim for ourselves and when is it appropriate to reach out to another discipline for adjacent expertise? That person then becomes a co-creator in this process in a way that doesn't negate the expertise that we landscape architects hold.

And then it's less about, “Only I can do it or only they can do it.” But rather, “How does this dialogic process start to happen?”

Sam Clemente It's sort of like a “jack of all trades, master of none” kind of situation, which is reducing it, but where do you guys envision it going more in depth? If it's equally all of those things, then what’s the “thing”?

Alexis Bernstein I don't have an answer… I think that I genuinely have no idea. Honestly, at this current moment in time, my brain is not functioning at that level.

Gillian Ford I think that this was one of the most debated points of conversation in the class. What does it mean to be a landscape architect? What specific technical skills do you have to have to call yourself that? And how do you differentiate yourself? And then what does it mean to specialize or, you know, have additional skills?

So I think that that really is kind of up to us as the next generation coming out to define. 

Alexis Bernstein I think it would take all of us. I would like to see more specialized firms. So, Studio Ludo in Philadelphia works exclusively on playgrounds. Stream Landscape Architecture works exclusively in water management on the Western Range. I think that having those niche firms that people can go to for these niche needs is something that's going to be beneficial. That's what I would like to see. And it's something that I think is going to be impossible in an academic setting to ever be able to incorporate the level of knowledge that you really want. And if you really want that level of knowledge, you have to be someone who is a year ahead of us– Rachel Thody, who added another year so she could double major in environmental science because she really wants to have that knowledge. 

Rachel Thody, Water Quality Analysis of Natural Beaver Dams and Beaver Dam Analogs in Wetland Restoration in Colorado

Gillian Ford Yes. A lot of people do that– they double major in an adjacent field.

Alexis Bernstein For a while, last year, there were a lot of conversations about what should CU Denver’s landscape architecture program should be known as? And I don't know if they ever came up with what they wanted it to be.

Sam Clemente And this is faced with the reality that it pays off, financially for firms to do a diversity of projects. And I even saw a statistic in the Washington Post, that the amount of people that are double majoring in undergrad to cover more bases has doubled in the past decade. So, it's that reality with the reality that you guys pose that there needs to be a definition of landscape architecture.

Alexis Bernstein As the next generation moving into the workforce, we have a chance to be an advocate and ask, “Is that how we're going to do things?”

Gillian Ford I think about that a lot. What kind of field do we want landscape architecture to be? And that's kind of a meta question, but you know, we'll see, we'll see what kind of impact we have. Maybe we should talk again in 10 years?

→ Read “How Public Is Private? Aesthetics, Obligation, and the Ecology of Ownership,” the article discussed in Gillian and Alexis’ class by Landezine editor-in-chief Zaš Brezarthe.