For the past four and a half years, I have spent my time here in college studying architecture. It has been quite the journey and has finally (sort of) come to an end, just as I start a new. These next two years I will be studying landscape architecture through the Masters of Landscape Architecture and Urbanism (MLA or MLA+U) coterminal program. This new era of mine has started with the exploration of what it means to be working with landscape, and to be very honest, the differences between the two degrees that I am doing are massive.
Architecture
Lets start with architecture, an art form that has turned itself into career of stress and structural analysis problems that seem to only prove to engineers that anything is possible (kind of). In architecture, we are bound by limits codes, client requirements, dimension, furniture, and organizational rules. In architecture, there are countless different ways of solving a problem, but there are always guidelines for how to solve it. Some go with a very organic and curvy design for their problem, creating a variety new problems to solve. Sometimes we get a Miesian who designs using blocks of steel and glass which has its own issues, most of which have to do with solar heat gain and energy efficiency.
One thing is for sure about architecture, which is that no matter where you look, there are lines. Bold, intimidating, and ferocious lines that define spaces, paths of travel, stairs, and even parking spots. We architects design with such definition that we have preassigned what people can and cannot do in our buildings. A room meant for meetings can only be used for meetings or similar programming. A house can only be a house. Architects as a people seek to control peoples lives whether we think about it or not, because we have told them what it is they can and cannot do in the spaces they inhabit. If I were to pull out a grill in the middle of a lobby of a 70-story high rise, I would not only get security called on me, I would be labeled a weirdo, get put on Facebook by someone’s aunt with the title “crazy man”, but most of all, I would breaking every convention and rule the architect created for that space.
As architects, we create spaces not just be inhabited, but to have a purpose. Even the repurposing or renovation of building can still lead to the creation of spaces that can only be used for a set of purposes, defined by the architect. The only reason continue to do so is because at the end of the day, people believe us architects. Afterall, we are the experts, the ones who designed, the idiots who thought putting a room next to an elevator shaft was smart (it was not). People follow our rules because that’s society has told them to do, and that is not to say you should go to the Sears tower and have a barbecue in the middle the food court, because that’s why we have a Shake Shack there. I am absolutely not encouraging anyone to break the rules the architect made for these spaces, but rather informing you that these rules exist, and many times its for a good reason. Landscape architecture on the other hand, yeah those rules went on a paper that got thrown straight into Lake Michigan.
Landscape Architecture
Landscape architects (whom I will architects from this point forward)…attempt to create rules for their spaces. Unfortunately for the architect, everything from the trees, to the shrubs, bees, and people, will never follow those rules. My professor said something on one of our first trips out looking at plants which stuck to me, “If you were to a photo of a tree one second, then take one again, that tree was not the same as it was in the first photo.” Its a simple but incredible quote that describes the nature of nature for these architects. No one, and I mean not a single thing, will listen to our rules. Yes we will create spaces using guidelines supplied by codes, clients, and even plants, but that’s as far as the rules go.
The harsh lines that we once saw defining rooms and paths in buildings, have no disappeared or become thin suggestions for how to use landscape. Its quite simple why that is too, especially when you understand my quote from above. Nature has no rules. If a tree wants to grow like a swirl that has a 45 degree angle to the ground, it will do that without our permission. Heck, it won’t even ask for forgiveness, it will just grow. If the sand does not feel like supporting a concrete path, it will simply allow that path fall and erode. If a queen bee wants its hive to sit right on top of a wooden fence, it will make its hive on that wooden fence. If someone wants to have a barbecue in an open grass patch in a park, they absolutely can. Landscape design is all about having few rules and guidelines to the spaces because we know that those rules will be broken at some point.
If these architects really wanted people, plants, and insects to follow those rules, we’d have to create certain gestures to truly enforce those rules. We’d have to plant steel poles and force the tree to grow straight, add insecticide to deter the bees from the fence, and put a fence, sign, and require permits to allow barbecues on that grass patch. Even then, all of these subjects will do what they want somewhere else where there are lesser or no rules. That’s why landscape architects are trained differently than “regular” architects. We are trained to acknowledge a lack of rules in nature and spaces we create. We are made to understand that even if we want a space used for a certain purpose, it probably won’t be unless you make very explicit gestures to suggest otherwise. Its a kind of art form that forgets uniformity and rules, instead allowing the art to change over time. Its why I think landscape designers have far more fun in career than building designers do. Its also why its a less sought after career.
The path ahead is dusty and overgrown
Landscape designers have a career that very few actually want to do. Humans live by rules and guidelines, which makes architects the ones who design for people. Landscape architects don’t just design for humans, but for trees, grass, bees, and even raccoons apparently. We go out of our way to help those that may even harm us, simply because as landscape designers, we already threw the rules out the window. There is absolutely no reason to not help nature take its course in our designs. We walk a path that’s at times filled with dirt and rocks, and we are there to keep that path because that’s how nature wants it. Landscape designers don’t just have a responsibility to fulfill the needs of humans, but rather the needs of everything around us, and it is with that understanding that I think landscape architects have such an amazing career. Its also why they are so different from building designers. But one thing is for sure about both careers, which is that as designers, we still hold the importance of helping others higher than anything else.