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General Description

This is an ideal career for a creative thinker. A landscape architect is a skilled artist who plans and designs practical, useful and attractive outdoor environments. You may design land area projects such as parks, school playgrounds,, the areas surrounding buildings, highways, hospitals, airports, and commercial, industrial and residential developments.

Career Advice - Landscape Architect Career

Landscape architects use natural elements like land, trees, shrubs, flowers, pebbles, and mulch to design an outdoor space. You use special features such as statues, fountains and outdoor art to enhance the area and vary traffic flow with interesting pathways. You may specialise in services such as regional planning, site selection, resource management, cost studies or site construction. You might choose to work independently, or alongside architects, engineers, town planners, and other professionals.

What you do every day

Every day is different and depends on the project. Initially you will consult with your clients, gaining an understanding of their needs and objectives. You then confer with other professionals to gain information on influential factors, such as soil structure, drainage, historical and natural conservation requirements. You need to account for all legal and environmental requirements, and take all other relevant matters into consideration.

You can then make recommendations, and draw up site plans usually with the help of computer aided design software (CAD). If the client requests changes, you alter the plan accordingly, so the process continues back and forward until agreement has been reached.
Once you have a final set of plans, you prepare specifications, estimate costs, list building materials, and prepare detailed working drawings of the site. These drawings include all existing features, as well as new features. As a landscape architect, you then make detailed drawings of individual features, such as paths, benches, and curbs. Once complete, these drawings are submitted to contractors, and the construction can begin.

You will generally supervise the site work, ensuring that the environment is landscaped according to plan. In large projects, you may work closely with other specialists. However on small projects, you may be the only architect involved in the entire project. It is more common to have several landscape architects working together on the same project.    

Personality that best fits this career

Landscape architecture requires strong artistic, planning, analytical and creative skills. You will need the ability to turn abstract ideas and concepts into concrete two dimensional (2D) or three dimensional (3D) designs. This means that you have accurate, and detailed, technical drawing skills. Your work will require many hours of contact with computers, so an aptitude for learning new programs would be beneficial.

Communication skills are important, since you will have to incorporate your client’s ideas into your planning. You may go through multiple design stages, redrafting and making alterations, and so patience and problem solving skills are necessary. During the design process, you will draw off your ability to concentrate and stay organised, as well as manage your time effectively.

You will need to be able to work independently, but also as part of a team. Your area of work will run to deadlines, and so working well under pressure is important. Overall, it is helpful if you enjoy the natural environment. 

Best thing about this career

The best aspect of being a landscape architect is the freedom to be creative and imaginative. You can watch your ideas take form as you develop your designs through the stages. Nothing beats the pride and satisfaction of seeing your work built or constructed just as you imagined it.

Your carefully constructed landscape drawings and plans, will often affect the community you are working in, such as large community parks, hospital gardens, playgrounds, shopping complexes, and schools. This occupation is influential to the operation of the community, and so you feel the respect and pride of contributing in environmentally pleasing ways.  

Worst thing about this career

Depending on your area within the business, you may find a downside in the demand, or lack thereof, on your imagination. All artists have their creative blockages, and under the pressure of deadlines, you may find it difficult to think of original designs. However, as a beginning landscape architect, you may work in a position where you spend most of your time undertaking routine tasks.

It’s possible that you will be drawing similar designs day in, day out, with little variation to keep your work interesting, which can become tedious. Sitting at a drafting table for eight hours a day can also place demands on your posture, while your designs may cause repetitive strain injuries in your wrist or arm. Also, the job outlook is not overly positive.