Weekend Repost: :Landscape Architecture Needs Fixing (Amenities)

Unwind
Originally uploaded by aurastra

It's the weekend and it's time for a repost.

Park benches. Trellises. gazebos. hand rails. These are all things that are wrong with Landscape Architecture.

Why does this profession continue to order benches out of catalogs? who actually believes that they look good? Do designers really want the stamp of another company on all of their designs, the same stamp that is on hundreds if not thousands of other designers landscapes?

We are taught to design, why is it so hard to design a simple park bench that has a designers stamp? I visited an award winning dog park in the fall of 2007. It was recently featured in Landscape Architecture Magazine. When I saw the park the first thing that stuck out was the shade structure. The cataloged gazebo. It looked exactly like every other parks shade structure. nothing unique about it. some pillars and a blue metal roof.

If the park could win awards for its uniqueness why couldn't the designers design a shade structure instead of ordering it from a catalog? Are Landscape Architects lazy? A common response is "budget" let's face it, "budget" is a POOR excuse for a lack of creativity and creativity INCLUDES finding solutions on a low budget. not just ordering it from a catalog. I've SEEN these catalogs and I KNOW the costs. I also know how to build them and I know that with some creative thinking it can be done CHEAPER than what can be ordered in a catalog.

It's frustrating to see the laziness of designers in the profession I am going into.

I vow to not order amenities from a catalog. I hope others take this same vow and really push our profession to the respect it should deserve.