County of Orange
Environmental Management Agency
Harbors, Beaches and Parks

Dear LASN:

I have been receiving and reading LASN since it was first published. I find it very interesting and informative and enjoy reading it.

In reading the latest issue, you have reported the LAF/CLASS Fund 1988 Landscape Awards. While the list was very thorough, covering most awards, one award was omitted. Unfortunately you omitted reporting a well-deserved personal award. The 1988 Public Open Space Award, the first time ever awarded, went to Mr. Ralph Hudson. This award was granted to Mr. Hudson for his life-time of preservation of Public Open Space in Southern California.

Perhaps there was an oversight in reporting this award, but I think it certainly is an honorable and noteworthy achievement that should not be overlooked.

Thank you for a fine magazine!

Sincerely,
Mary A. Murray

Dear Mary:

My sincerest apologies! You are very right Mr. Hudson has been the backbone to Orange County’s development of more, than 35J000 acres of parkland and richly deserves such recognition. Thank you for your thoughtful remembrance.

G.S.

Dear LASN:

Re: Licensed L.A.’s

I was deeply saddened by your publications editorial on page fifty-one of your last issue. For such a strongly worded statement, it was not noted as being an editorial, article or feature. As an active professional who presently is becoming registered, I take exception to your US vs THEM mentality. This combative attitude is not necessary and also becoming very outdated. I have heard this confrontational argument for the past ten to twelve years. Let us all get off of dead center; this type of attitude within our profession (a profession with a proud and rich heritage which is still young and growing) can only continue to stunt our true potential and growth. If this attitude persists, we can only lead ourselves to decline with this infighting and, at the same time, provide to society a negative image of ourselves.

The wording of and action proposed in your editorial would result in nothing short of eating our own young. How are future professionals to grow when we continually exclude them from our profession? The only way to learn is to practice. There are still too few registered Landscape Architects for all of our young practitioners to learn under. If a talented young designer just out of school can not find a “professional” willing to cultivate his or her potential, that designer has no course of action other than to become one of your so-called “Landscape Designers”. Usually this is at a Garden Center or, if lucky, with a design/build organization that may or may not have a licensed Landscape Architect on staff.

Possibly my difficulty with your editorial is that our profession in Minnesota has risen above this old and stale issue. The Landscape Architects, with very few exceptions, extend themselves into the total Landscape Industry as much as possible. Our Landscape Architects are not interested in going back to doing little residential foundation planting plans. Rather our true professionals are engaged in striving toward our larger and more important land/ societal issues and design needs. We in Minnesota realize that there are clear and recognized areas of practice that require the expertise and experience of registered Landscape Architects. We also acknowledge that there are areas too small and far too numerous for true professionals to spare enough time to adequately serve. These smaller and simpler design needs are better served by our Landscape Designers who learn and improve their design talents with these practical experiences.

We must also recognize our social responsibilities. Is society served with regards to health, safety and welfare by overworking our Landscape Architects with residential foundation plantings? Our society looks to us to serve in the highest and most effective manner possible. Our greater environment also calls us to look at broader issues and not to cower within ourselves and limit our professional practice to planting plans and simple residential efforts. Let’s face it, residential clients (for the most part) require someone with immediate access to plant materials, good plant knowledge, and very reasonable fees. Our true registered Landscape Architects cannot fill this area adequately. However, Landscape Designers at Garden Centers and elsewhere can. True, we must always be alert to anyone “getting in over their heads”, but with self-policing and self-regulation in Minnesota everyone is better served.

The truly unskilled will be taken care of by the laws of competition and the marketplace. It is time for all Landscape Architects to stop looking at protectionist legislation and regulation as being the key to their professional betterment. We all need to open ourselves and practices to expand our areas of design. Let the marketplace weed out the unskilled and, at the same time, reward the truly visionary and professional Landscape Architects with greater, more encompassing environmental and socially responsive design commissions.

In closing, Landscape Architects everywhere need to improve the overall quality of our built environment by reaching and stretching higher, not by stooping lower. By showing our land, environment and socially responsive design abilities to society as a whole, we will be far more effective in finally putting to rest the “Posy Planter” stigma that some choose to even now dwell upon.

Let US “be real” to our profession, our land/environmental heritage, and to truly serve society in the highest and most effective ways possible. Let’s expand, not contract. This needs to be the true goal of our profession: expand the marketplace and our practices, not protectionism and infighting.

Sincerely,

Michael T. Sawyer
Project Manager/Land Architect