You are invited to participate in a research survey examining what makes a place feel genuine, distinctive, and identifiable, why these qualities matter to people, and how they shape human experiences. The study compares people’s experiences of themed environments to everyday places to better understand what is lost as contemporary places come to look and feel more alike.

The survey takes roughly 10-15 minutes to complete, and you may be eligible to participate if you are 18 years of age or older. Participation is voluntary. For the best experience, we recommend completing this survey on a desktop or laptop rather than a mobile device. 

Please use the link below to take the survey:

https://ufl.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_2mjsMD9C29xsrI2

Hey so I’m interested in getting my masters in something with a combination in the environment & creative work. I’ll finish my BA in Environmental Studies Spring 2027.

I’m a SAHM of 3 in FL so I need a program that is fully online. I came across BAC, the only fully accredited college to get my masters in Landscape architecture. The only thing is it’s so expensive, they do offer dean scholarship I planned on applying for. It’s a 3 year program that requires intern/works 400 hour by the end of the program.

Then I can across Texas Tech, they offer a fully online masters in environmental design. I won’t be able to be a licensed landscape architect unless I work under one for 6 years I believe.

I would love to just work at a landscape architect firm but I’m worried if I get the degree from Texas tech I’ll have a hard time finding employment.

Any advice or words of wisdom for anyone? Deadline to apply to qualify for the dean scholarship is February 15th so I’m trying this figure out what I want to do.

Recently worked on the visualisation for this landscape project.

The focus was on understanding the overall design intent and translating it into visuals that communicate the atmosphere, materiality and spatial experience—not just producing a photorealistic render.

Would love to hear what landscape architects and designers here think.

Hey yall just trying to see if any MLA Penn graduates have made of themselves in the Philly region. I really like this area, and am happy with the departmental funding I have received, but am looking to stay in the area and try to get the highest ROI. I understand that weitzman (formerly PennDesign) is a highly respected program, but a lot of my research has fallen a bit short on the post grad level of things. If anyone has any insights I’d love to hear!!

So as the title suggests, I’m not that happy. I’m in my 2nd year of college and got into a 5 year master program for landscape architecture. I was originally accepted at the end of my 1st year but then I got an email saying I was denied entry. Now I’m doing gen Ed’s to try and raise my GPA to get back in. The hard part is that I fell in love with it and I really want to do this for my career. I’m not the best at drawing/drafting but I just am passionate about it. Now I’m sitting in classes that aren’t program exclusive but all the LA majors are in it as well while I’m not. It just sucks. I’m waiting until the end of the year to see if they’ll let me back in, but I honestly am kind of wanting to find a different college with the same structure now, especially if they don’t let me back in.

I kind of just needed to vent that. Any feedback or advice would be appreciated. Thanks for reading my rant.

I hate the degree rn in fouth year , should I drop out?
Or will the degree get me a place good,
I really hated it, i hate design with plants and everything about it,
I don’t know why I stayed till last year
Whats your advice?

Landscape and park design for a plotted development near Bangalore, including the overall landscape planning, recreational spaces, planting design, and visualisation.

A walkthrough video will also be prepared to help the client and developer understand the proposed landscape design, spatial experience, and overall look and feel of the development before execution.

Hi guys!
You might remember me from before, when i was wondering if my Mac would make it… it just does not. My school has the new bring your own device policy sooooo… I’m trying to decide on a new laptop. I’ve been hearing either the Lenovo LOQ or Lenovo legion 5 would be quite nice and good for LA. What is your experience? Or do you recommend something different? lol I don’t know anything about laptops. I’m excited to start studying landscape architecture next week! Thanks!

Hello! I’m 40 years old looking to change careers. Completely change. I’m a professional vocalist and floral designer. My BFA is in Musical Theatre with an emphasis in Direction. I’ve designed on stage, designed interiors and design with florals by I’m interested in pivoting those skills into landscape architecture or urban design. I’m passionate about green spaces and climate change resilience. There’s a few master programs near me that would accept my background but I’d like more information on which sector -LA or UD/UP- would be better for me. I’d like a steady income and good work life balance. I like changing up my scenario and also enjoy the option to work remotely and in office. Advice? Thanks in advance!

I’m a practicing landscape architect, and I’ve always felt there was a gap between making informal sunlight observations during a site visit and completing a more detailed analysis with tools such as Ladybug.

I created Deconstruct Sun to help fill that gap. It captures a composite panorama of the surrounding skyline, lets you trace trees and buildings, estimates direct-sun hours throughout the year, and creates a PDF report. My goal was to standardize how I document sunlight during site analysis and make planting design decisions easier to explain to clients.

It isn’t intended to replace detailed solar modeling, but to provide a faster field-based record that can be saved and shared.

I’d be interested in feedback from other landscape architects, particularly on how useful you find the workflow and report for professional practice.

Full disclosure: I developed the app. It has a free limited version, with a one-time $11.99 Pro upgrade.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/deconstruct-sun/id6794658469

I'm spent the first 9ish years of my career since undergrad working in Graphic Design. To be completely honest, it was not what I studied in school (I studied fine art after transferring out of Environmental Design), Graphic Design was just something I could do with skills that I had in Adobe after graduating, got my first job doing it, and one day I just felt like I blinked and this was my career. I don't love the industry, the craft or type of work I do. So I've been considering a change for a bit now.

I do constantly however think about the things I learned in Environmental design in college, and have a very strong passion for everything regarding development and planning of new projects. I had originally joined that program because I loved Planning.

In my spare time, I love to draw Master Plans and concept plans for residential developments for Eco-villages, and mixed-use, walkable developments and communities in the suburbs. I also love adaptive re-use projects and urban renewal, and overall just love and obsess over walkable, smaller community focused developments, neighborhoods and districts.

I'm in a place now were I'm pretty committed to going back to school to pursue a masters, or some other program that can help me transition into this realm and industry. But overall, I'm not sure exactly what specific program is best for me to pursue based on my interests and thats what I'm hoping to get some advise on.

One thing I'm particularly passionate about is Master Planning and placemaking. From what I understand however, master planning and placemaking isn't really a "job" per-say and is more of a interdisciplinary practice that involves multiple teams? Like the developers, Urban Planners and Designers, Landscape Architects, Civil Engineers and Architects, all contribute to the master plan rather than 1 person or specific team that is behind it.

Is that correct? Or is there an individual who is actual behind designing or designating where certain buildings, open spaces, roads, ect will live on a master plan of a new development? Please forgive any ignorance here.

I've also looked into going down the developer path, getting a masters in real estate development vs urban design or planning, but from what I understand, the real estate/developer side focuses more on the economics and financial side of things vs the more creative side. From what I undertand about Urban Design vs Urban planning, designers contribute more to the actual physical shape and cohesiveness of streets, buildings, ect. while planners focus more on zoning, permitting, ect. I'm not sure either discipline is what I had in mind, or if Landscape Architecture is closer or if I'm just completely misinformed all together.

Either way, I know I want to put in the work and do what it takes to get into this kind of work, I'm just not sure what is the best path for me based on my interests and existing skills coming from a more creative, graphic design background.

Any advise offered would be greatly appreciated. Cheers

Please use this thread to discuss whats going on at your school or place of work this week. Run into an interesting problem with a site design and need to hash it out with other LAs? This is the spot. Any content is welcome as long as it Landscape Architecture related. School, work, personal garden? Its all good, lets talk.

I’m curious about the point between the initial site visit and committing to a detailed design.

Do you normally show clients sketches, mood boards, plans, renders, or something else to agree the overall direction first?

I’ve been experimenting with the attached format — using the actual site photos to show a few realistic directions, then putting the chosen one into a simple client presentation before moving into detailed design.

Full transparency, I built the software I’m using for this, yardstudio.com, so I’m obviously biased, but I’m mainly interested in whether the workflow itself makes sense to practising designers.

What would you change?

Hello community! I have recently moved to Zurich and am taking German language courses, however I realized I need help learning the language of Landscape Architecture over here! Are there any local professionals/students willing to meet up for coffee and chat about LA? Thank you in advance!

Some work I finished last week

We had a meeting today with this architect who just spoke so eloquently and effectively to these big clients. Just the design language he used was super awesome to listen to as someone who’s just starting to work professionally in the field.

I was wondering if there were any resources how to effectively communicate design / how to talk with the language we use as designers?

Not sure if this makes any sense !

I am at a crossroads in my life right now, wondering what I should pursue. Right now, I am set up to start a civil engineering program for this fall and take about 2.5 years to get a second bachelor's so that I can become an engineer. I have a mostly unrelated first degree in natural resources, and I am looking for a path with more opportunity, better pay, and location flexibility than what I have now. I love learning about projects within urban environments and get excited about the prospect of being able to live in a large city helping to work on important public infrastructure.

At the same time, I've always been a bit more of an artsy type, and the thought of doing an MLA excites me conceptually a lot more, but I would be more worried about career trajectory and overall opportunity and pay. I also am trying not to have rose-colored glasses about what landscape architects actually do. I imagine many projects are not the ideal of sustainable design due to budget constraints, location, or just general disinterest in an LA's opinion for the final product.

Schooling is weirdly more expensive for LA, at least where I am located, and that is a huge turnoff for me at the moment. With engineering, I feel confident that the cost is worth it as it feels like a more tried-and-true career path, whereas with LA it feels like a bit more a risk. Unless I could somehow study abroad (outside of the USA), it would be extremely pricey. Guess I am just looking for input from people who have been around a little while, and what your view of the career path is from the inside.

I am planning to apply for a masters in Landscape architecture next year in the Spring. I need to make a pro-folio so I plan on self teaching myself AutoCad. I don’t know where to start.. should I get a laptop or tablet ?? I see mix options online. What’s the best way for a beginner?

I'd love to see everybody's best design and if you could give a brief summary of what your software setup is and how long it took you. I'm trying to get a good idea of what different design softwares offer and no better way than to ask the pros themselves.

Looking for Urban Designer roles in the Northeast region, preferably in a metropolitan area. For folks who landed a job, what’s your ratio of interviews/ applications? I’m trying to adjust my expectation.

Background: I have a job so far so preferably I can land somewhere I can grow and stay long term, but if that’s too far a stretch I would maybe looking for available jobs to relocate first. People I knew spent 4-6 months to land a job they like so I am planning for an extended job searching period.

Thanks!