Introduction to Construction Industry Documentary Video ( Project 1 : About Landscape Architect)

By: l0lever

Here is the original post:
Introduction to Construction Industry Documentary Video ( Project 1 : About Landscape Architect) - Video

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Landscape architecture firms are experiencing sluggish but steady growth as they emerge from the recession, according to the American Society of Landscape Architects second quarter 2013 Business Quarterly survey. More firms reported stable or rising billable hours but have pared down their plans to hire.

82.8 percent of firm representatives responding indicated stable to higher billable hours in the second quarter of 2013, compared to 76.1 percent last quarter. Some 83.5 percent reported stable to higher inquiries for work, representing a slight drop from 85.8 percent last quarter.

Year to year, 63.5 percent claimed slightly to significantly higher first-quarter inquiries from potential clients for new project work. Additionally, 60.8 percent indicated first-quarter billable hours remained about the same or were higher.

This mixed picture has caused firms to downsize their near-term hiring plans. Of all firms with two or more employees, 49 percent indicated they would be hiring in the second quarter of 2013, compared to 54.5 percent last quarter. Some 30.9 percent of firms with two or more employees said they plan to hire a landscape architect next quarter, either entry-level or experienced, a slight dip from 31.7 percent previously. Half of responding firms with 50 to 99 employees plan to hire an entry-level landscape architect.

This survey provides further confirmation that the landscape architecture profession is gradually emerging from the recession, but we still need to see better job numbers, says Nancy Somerville, Hon. ASLA, executive vice president and CEO of ASLA. Until that happens, recovery will continue to be a cautious one.

The survey also asked firms about computing and mobile technologies employed by their employees to manage files and projects. Top devices or services included desktop computers (97.2 percent), smartphones (64.3 percent) and an office Wi-Fi network (59 percent). Only 31.7 percent of firms indicated their employees use cloud computing; overall, 59 percent of responding firms indicated they were not sure that cloud computing makes them more productive and profitable.

While 62.2 percent said day-to-day-business is dependent on such technologies as smartphones and tablets, 89.3 percent noted that their employees do not use iPads or other tablets to design. Firms are essentially evenly divided as to whether they provide mobile devices to their employees, with 50.2 percent answering yes and 49.8 percent answering no.

Key Survey Highlights:

Compared to the first quarter 2013, your second quarter 2013 billable hours were: Significantly higher (more than 10%) 20.1% Slightly higher (5 to 10% higher) 36.7% About the same (plus or minus 5%) 26.0% Slightly lower (5 to 10% lower) 10.0% Significantly lower (more than 10%) 7.2%

Read the original here:
ASLA Survey Shows Uneven Economic Picture for Landscape Architecture Firms

A Day in the Life of a Landscape Architect
Follow our landscape architect, Keith, while he explains what a landscape architect does from day-to-day.

By: KarvakkoEngineering

More:
A Day in the Life of a Landscape Architect - Video

Dick Glanville, whos provided unpaid services to San Anselmo as a landscape architect on and off since 1999, will get a Green Award.

The prize will be presented at 7 p.m. Aug. 5 at a special Town Council meeting.

It was voted for unanimously at a recent session of the Quality of Life Commission, which has been giving awards to unsung heroes monthly for five years.

As a volunteer, Glanville helped formulate the plan to replant and water the towns diseased elm trees, and has helped out with the rain garden at the library, tennis courts at Memorial Park, and landscaping at the firehouse after the flood.

Hes supplemented his paid work for the town with many volunteer hours on many tasks because its what feels right to do the old giving back, he says.

What does that giving back look like?

At the rain garden, he worked with some other folks and prepared plans to rebuild the curbs, develop a gravel and drainage system, and then prepared the plants themselves.

And as an essential part of the volunteer elm tree task force, which was linked to U.C. Extension, he helped come up with a long-term plan for strategic replacement. Five trees that are still doing fine were planted the first year, 1999, but, because of budgetary constraints, additional ones were not planted again until last year.

Glanville did come up with a new plan but stepped aside because he was retiring. I had to pass the baton, he says.

Way back, when his kids attended, he, his wife and four other parents built the first Wade Thomas garden, with raised flower beds, and also built a stone wall in front of the gym.

Read more from the original source:
Volunteer landscape architect wins ‘unsung hero’ award

Choosing A Landscape Architect ~ Athens Ga, Wms Assoc.
http://www.gaplanning.com/landscape-architect-athens/ Here #39;s another from our "How To" series - this time we talk about choosing a professional landscape arc...

By: WilliamsAssociates

Read the rest here:
Choosing A Landscape Architect ~ Athens Ga, Wms

Landscape Architect Project in Albuquerque by Michael Polikoff
Landscape Architect Micahel Polikoff shows us a landscape design here in Albuquerque that includes Xeric Features and also qualified the homeowner for a sign...

By: abqwebstudio

Follow this link:
Landscape Architect Project in Albuquerque by Michael Polikoff - Video

July Landscape Architect Video July 2013

By: abqwebstudio

Go here to see the original:
July Landscape Architect Video July 2013 - Video

Landscape Architect Joy Kuebler
Joy Kuebler presents McKinley High School Reconstruction project The entry layout mimics the splayed angle of the addition, and introduces walks leading to t...

By: Susan Young

Read the original post:
Landscape Architect Joy Kuebler - Video

Inga Saffron, Inquirer Architecture Critic Posted: Wednesday, July 10, 2013, 3:01 AM

Laurie Olin says he really meant to retire two years ago. He even had notices sent out to announce he was handing the reins of his Philadelphia-based landscape architecture firm to his partners. But projects kept coming up that he couldn't resist. The grounds of the Barnes Foundation. The Apple campus in Cupertino, Calif. Dilworth Plaza in front of City Hall.

So, at 75, Olin is as peripatetic as ever, jetting off to Europe and the West Coast to see clients. On Wednesday, though, he'll take a break from long-haul travels to meet President Obama and receive the National Medal of Arts, in recognition of his lifelong crusade to create tranquil oases that make cities more livable.

For Olin, who favors bow ties and tends toward the self-effacing, the award is a chance "for me to swim quietly among the celebrities," who include the likes of director George Lucas, playwright Tony Kushner and soprano Renee Fleming. What he fails to stress is that he is only the fourth landscape architect (the second from Philadelphia) to receive the honor since its establishment in 1984. That puts him in the company of three of the field's most influential practitioners from the last half-century: Dan Kiley, Lawrence Halprin, and Ian McHarg, who, like Olin, spent his career teaching at Penn.

Tall and lean, Olin is the product of the vast open spaces of the Pacific Northwest. Yet he "fell in love with cities" at the precise moment when places like Philadelphia and New York were hemorrhaging middle-class residents, and has always seen parks as a means of seducing people back.

Olin is probably most famous for his 1988 transformation of Manhattan's Bryant Park, which had become a notorious drug-dealers' haven in the 1960s. He had personally witnessed a shooting there in 1968.

But rather than fortify the space against such behavior - the popular approach at the time - Olin and his late partner, Robert Hanna, tore down walls to make it easy to saunter in from any side. The biggest surprise in Olin's elegant, Parisian-inflected renovation was the decision to furnish the park with movable cafe chairs and tables. Critics were sure they would end up in pawnshops.

Instead, midtown office workers flocked to the serene refuge, the dealers fled, and Bryant Park became a template for reviving battered cities.

"It was a huge turning point," says Bryan Hanes, a Philadelphia landscape architect who worked for Olin and applied the same ideas to redesigning West Philadelphia's Clark Park.

More:
Changing Skyline: Phila. landscape architect Laurie Olin wins National Medal of Arts

Exterior Images-landscape architect Adding outdoor living elements to pool back yard
Existing backyard has pool and spa but lack any other reason to look at the back yard let alone go out and enjoy the space. Completing the pool with a raised...

By: Hal Blevins

Read more:
Exterior Images-landscape architect Adding outdoor living elements to pool back yard - Video