Spotlight: What I Do As a Landscape Architect

If good design is subtle, you may overlook the deliberate choice that is made when creating the landscape. A landscape architect’s job is to subtly guide you through the physical space and shape the way you interact with it, and this is a little more than just choosing houseplants.

To learn more about the work of a landscape architect, we spoke with Bret Hanson , who has worked with Walt Disney Imagineering on projects ranging from public infrastructure to landscapes, and now works in sustainable urban design with LPA Inc.

Above: A plan of West Hollywood Park as seen by LPA Inc.

Tell us a little about yourself and your experience.

Hey! My name is Bret Hanson, and I’m a licensed landscape architect, which gives me tremendous authority to legally call myself a landscape architect, sign construction documents, and explain to people that I am doing more than just housing. I currently work for LPA Inc., a multidisciplinary design firm . in our Orange County office, specifically our Urban Design Studio. I have 10 years of experience (straight from Kansas) working for (four) very different companies and covering probably every market segment imaginable. Currently, my portfolio at LPA Urban Design Studio focuses on civil, healthcare, life sciences and various targeted development.

What prompted you to choose your career path?

I was born, raised, educated and fed on cornbread in Kansas. From my mother’s side, there were people of the earth in the family before, during and after the depression. I spent most of my youth on our grandparents’ farm, hunting, fishing, camping, driving hay, driving off-road, dropping a cow, and traveling through the countryside. One of my dad’s hobbies is sailing (yes, we actually have lakes in Kansas), so we also spent many weekends on the water. Also, my mom has textile experience and my dad is a professional guitarist, so I like to think that there is some creativity in these country veins.

As a child, my toy arsenal included LEGO, Lincoln Logs, GI Joes, He-Man, etc. Many complex structures and forts were built from these tools, followed by epic battles. This evolved in high school as I delved deeper into architecture classes, although I had the drawing skills of a two year old. I originally went to college to study architecture, but switched to landscape architecture because I thought it offered more variety and more. The biological nature of the living “landscape” was and remains poetic for me. These personality traits and experiences helped me navigate where I find myself today and sowed the seeds of my love and respect for working with our external environment.

How did you get a job? What kind of education and experience did you need?

I was born a surfer in a kanzan body, so after getting my BA in landscape architecture from Kansas State University it was California or a bust. The KSU program offers a semester study abroad or internship program. I decided to do an internship overseas in California and got a couple of excellent internships in Orange County, which resulted in a full-time position after graduation. The steps to becoming a professional landscape architect are similar to architecture. There are minor differences between each state, but overall the process is consistent. Time-consuming process and licensing set up to protect public welfare and our industry.

• Step 1. Attendance and graduation from an accredited architecture college – this means the curriculum meets certain metrics and hours.
• Step 2 – Work a certain number of professional hours to become eligible for the exam – 2-3 years.
• Step 3 – Pass the licensing exams (+/- five, depending on the state). License exams are difficult and expensive.
• Step 4 – Framework License.
• Step 5 – Show off to your non-construction friends, you now have a bush license.

What are you doing besides what people see? What do you do most of your time?

Internet memes usually depict landscape architects either mowing lawns or sitting at a table clicking on CAD all day. This is partly true, and you can definitely go to jail. In fact, regardless of discipline (landscape architect, architect, engineer, etc.), our profession is extremely broad. We are not only designers, but also planners, innovators, communicators, writers, coordinators, managers, marketers, green building leaders and many others. Landscape architects need to know not only about plants but also about paving, walls, fence, railings, concrete, wood, metal, furniture, lighting, water features, irrigation, water management, and sustainability. In addition, we need to understand the design of each part and how they are all interconnected within the overall area and ecological cycle. We’re not just drawing pretty lines – these lines have to be agency approved for coding, within budget, built by contractors, and hopefully sustainable. As Ned Stark once joked, “You can’t just draw a paving joint.”

In addition, projects have multiple stages, and each stage involves different actors – clients, representatives of different disciplines, consultants, product suppliers, cities, agencies and contractors. This makes coordination and communication two of the most important skills in our profession as they persist throughout the life of a project. Overly simplified phased implementation of a project is a Conceptual Design, Construction Documentation (drawing and writing how the project is built, agency approvals, tenders) and Construction.

Personally, my current week is roughly 25% coordination (email, phone calls, appointments, applications), 30% documentation and design (sketches, exhibits, CAD, Adobe, Bluebeam ), 20% construction management (field review, applications, RFI , extinguishing fires), 20% management (project tracking, scheduling, planning analysis), 5% others (internal operations, marketing, recruiting, etc.).

What misconceptions do people often have about your job?

As mentioned above, many people believe that we are “home” specialists and know everything we need to know about plants. Inside information shows that many landscape architects are not plant experts (myself included). I usually describe landscape architecture as “territory development”. Our profession spans the entire facility, intersects and coordinates with many disciplines, and projects range from homeowner’s grotto to schools, public transportation, amusement parks and whole city planning. As noted in the previous question, our work and skill set is vast and varied. I believe our architectural skills are applicable in many different industries. Fashion-wise, with their all-black overalls and attention to glasses, the architects would make great West German talk show hosts.

What’s your average uptime?

I am currently fortunate enough to have a fairly balanced schedule for our industry, but each day is unique, extremely fast paced and action-packed! Another advantage: some firms (including LPA) are aware of the lives of their employees and allow flexible hours for your work (everything is within reason). I used to work for a firm where 60-hour work was common, and another where employees mostly worked between 8 am and 5 pm. Most would agree that the latter is not the norm, and that the culture of the construction industry is more than a 4,400 horsepower locomotive screaming on the rails. As stressful as long work weeks are, they can also be the most rewarding. Personally, I like the fast pace, even though I’m completely turned upside down. The overall workflow varies from office to office and usually boils down to project type, application fluctuations, and personal working style.

Pictured: Brea Sports Park , photo by LPA Inc. and Costea Photography.

What personal tips and shortcuts have made your job easier?

The LPA has built-in human shortcuts (in home commands) which, for my efficiency, were the same as the flow condenser was for driving McFly. I encourage all recent graduates to work in an office without these luxury items so that they can be fully appreciated:

• Enforcement Team – They are experts in everything to do with agencies – filing, commenting, demanding, etc. They do it all with a smile, despite my constant insults.
• Reproductive Graphics Team – These guys are typing, scanning, punching, and offering delicious Friday bagels to boot. Bagels are the key to success.
• IT – Our internal IT departments are entitled to disease. While troubleshooting the network outage, they would still take a minute to show me for the fifth time how to set up a conference room for an online meeting that I am 15 minutes late for.

Working in a truly integrated and multidisciplinary office means that our internal knowledge base at LPA is also a valuable shortcut. I can ditch Staedler and amaze any number of people with the experience I want to pursue – architect, engineer, designer, marketer, etc. or send an instant message to a LEED expert.

Personally, GTD is my passion with which I could tire people to death in a few days, and personal organization is at the level of obsession. I dabble in many things Google (Drive, Calendar, Keep) and also use Word, Excel and Outlook. With these tools, I created many templates (assigned several) and tailored them to my organizational will for planning, tracking projects, submitting applications, and documenting various processes. Documenting processes (step-by-step) is useful for communicating to others during training. Another recent program that has revolutionized my productivity is Bluebeam Revu . The interface is simple and makes it easy to view and annotate or quickly design a very informative document: coordination exhibitions, illustrations, presentations, etc. Sometimes it seems to me that the CAD wants it to be BB. True story: All the time we spend with CAD and its keyboard shortcuts, sometimes I do something wrong (for example, I park the car) and immediately think about pressing “U” to cancel.

What are you doing differently from your colleagues or colleagues in the same profession? What are they doing instead?

At the beginning of my career, I worked under stress, focusing on the wrong things, and this negatively affected my attitude towards people (and this was my own mistake). I myself try to do something differently and I want our construction industry to do it differently, it’s not just building buildings, but “building” people and relationships. Historically, our industry has tended to be about projects (aesthetics), evolving to include environmental sensitivity, and just starting to deal with sustainability and personal well-being. I want to challenge myself and others to lead the next phase – creating buildings and slavery places that influence their users to stay the same. It sounds idealistic, but outside of our personal bubbles (especially OS), we live in a world where, among other things, mental health problems, loneliness and strife prevail. If Amazon can shop online differently and Google differently, why can’t architecture firms grow and do more than just buildings? Media, social media, and technology control the digital world, but we can channel conversations and interactions through the real world. Our thinking influences our design, which in turn affects the users of the product. We adapt and become our environment.

This goal has matured over the past year and has been heavily influenced by my wife’s career, the places where I have worked (Orange County vs. downtown Los Angeles), and the people I work with. As a big homer, I experienced LPA as a company filled with people of extreme hospitality and friendliness. It’s hard to get around all of our five offices without seeing a smile, hearing a greeting, banging your fist, or turning into a cult joke of passers-by. Last year, some people started a weekly BYOL [Bring Your Lunch] called LPA Counter as an informal open invitation to dine and get to know each other. On our intranet we have a Kudos page where you can see the thank you flow in action. It all starts with the little things, and I think that our entire company, from top to bottom, adheres to the office culture in different ways, which is definitely reflected in our projects.

Talking about doing things differently, working in the design industry means you’re surrounded by creative and innovative people every day. It is well known that I am a proud guy, but I am secretly humiliated by all the talents I have accumulated in my career. Our landscape studio and UDS team influence me every day. Gus, our fearless leader, is also a world class mentor from whom I learn something every day. Daniel’s progressive creativity makes my brain go in different directions. And our recent graduate, Lindsay … if I had her listening and teaching skills, I would already be retired on the island drinking Lime Ricki.

Pictured: Park Place , photo LPA Inc. and Costea Photography.

What’s the worst part of a job and how do you deal with it?

I think most will agree – stress. As stated above, the construction industry can be tedious and the burnout due to workload demands can take its toll. For many days we are pulled in several difficult directions, and the left hand does not always know what the right is doing. We make workflow schedules (weekly, monthly, etc.), but for many days the fire catches on and everything burns out. Construction management is probably the most stressful because there are so many variables in a project that something unexpected ends up happening. Decisions are required immediately, and all of this can affect the cost. Still, it’s nice to make decisions at gunpoint and see them immediately implemented. It’s also fun to be on a construction site with monolithic machines and workers pounding, sawing, stretching, and blasting all over the place.

Back to topic: my wife’s job as a childcare coordinator for at-risk children helps put my career in perspective. In the construction industry, it is important to remember that this is not life and death, but a job in which we use sophisticated children’s creativity to build the world around us. Now try telling this to a contractor who just discovered that there is an existing 24 “deep engineering line where your plans show a row of 84” box trees!

What is the most enjoyable part of the job?

Watching your project build and then physically testing the final product is a truly enjoyable experience. More precisely, tapping your boots on the sidewalk, running your hand over the materials, hearing the sound of running water, inhaling the scent of fragrant plant material and enjoying the hue of a beautiful exemplary tree, you are perfectly aligned with the bench located exactly 57 feet away, because that’s how old the client was. when he founded his company. In addition, it is always pleasant to watch how strangers perceive the space in a way that you never imagined. It’s a great experience learning what worked and what didn’t.

Designs are complex animals and I will always wonder how they fit together. Even though this is just a tiny cluster of houses being nearby, I still visit my very first project ever built. Along with the feeling of the final product, people also experience. It’s a lot of fun working with all kinds of team members, working hard (sometimes frustrating each other) and building relationships along the way. Because our industry is so interconnected and localized, you will often find the following opportunity in this relationship.

Pictured: Coastline Community College , photo LPA Inc. and Costea Photography.

What advice can you give to people who need to use your services?

Given the scale of the project, most of our clients know what landscape architects are doing, so it’s more for the home owner. Learn about your own landscape. Find out what type of soil you have using the soil test kit. Pay attention to which areas receive sun or shade, and figure out your local microclimate. There are many factors involved in maintaining a healthy landscape, and even in SoCal, not all plants will grow all over the place. Understand that good design is not a cheap commodity, and that creating this landscape is not costly. One tree can be worth thousands of dollars. In addition, “native” and “drought-resistant” landscape design are, as a rule, different things. Most people actually want drought tolerant ones as they are more extensive and include neat plants like succulents!

How much money can you expect at your job?

Without giving numbers (they vary by job title, experience, company size, location), I would say that our industry pays salaries and benefits that allow you to live a comfortable life. You can chalk it up to my point of view on SoCal, but from what I’ve heard in other industries, the benefits of architecture firms seem to be above average and usually include an annual bonus, 401k and health insurance. My experience has always included these and other benefits such as profit sharing, life insurance, continuing education, licensing fees, professional club memberships, gym memberships, food, travel, company parties, and hot dog eating contests. Free coffee is always appreciated too! Playing devil’s advocate, many will argue that because we work so many days, our hourly wages are comparatively low. There is some truth to this, and we definitely make every penny, but I have never seen a working landscape architect standing on the corner with a sign “Cut your lawn for food”.

Photo: Cal Poly Pomona Recreation Center , image LPA Inc.

How are you progressing in your field?

I mentor some young professionals and always stress that you need to be brave when you are young, stick your hand in a lot of cookie jars and never be “too big” to do what you think is small. As trite as it sounds, stick to your commitments and your responsibilities will grow because people will trust you and want you to be on their team. Some will say that this is oversimplified, and they might be right.

Personal diatribe – in the previous office, the kitchen looked like the Pit. One of the owners named me “Kitchen Manager” and it was my job to make sure the kitchen was cleaned every week. I devised a table of team cleaners that rotated weekly and annoyed them every Friday for their 15 minutes of fat fame. Did I mention that I love cleaning and conquering dirty things? In any case, this owner has always admitted (even during reviews) that I tamed his kitchen. The little things matter because you never know who is watching. Altruism in hard work aside, the easiest way to “move up” is to change firms.

What do your customers underestimate / overestimate?

In the construction industry, architects tend to get media attention, and other disciplines (including landscape) can take a back seat. We hope that our clients (clients) value what landscape architects (and all professionals) do. I think the behind-the-scenes (fourth question) are inherently underestimated because, as noted, they are behind the scenes. Most clients will take the time to thank us and it is always good to hear that they appreciate how hard the project team has worked to make sure the project was designed and built beautifully, sustainably and on budget.

What advice would you give to those who want to become your profession?

You won’t get rich, it will be hard, you will be underestimated by architects, but you will literally change the living world and the way people interact with it and with each other … hopefully for the better.

Bret and his team at LPA Inc.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

More…