Landscape Profession

LA 250: Week 6-Landscape Architecture Profession Fredrick Law Olmsted: the first landscape architect, who was credited with naming the profession and with the creation of Central Park. Profession: a calling requiring specialized knowledge and often long and intensive academic preparation; a principal calling, vocation, or employment; the whole body of persons engaged in a calling. A profession is a self-selected, self-disciplined, group of individuals who hold themselves out to the public as possessing a special skill derived from education and training, and who are prepared to exercise that skill primarily in the interests of others. Characteristics of a profession Self-governing organization/association American Society of Landscape Architecture (1899) Mission: to lead, to educate, and participate in the careful stewardship, wise planning, and artful design of our cultural and natural environments. 11 founding members Currently has over 18,000 members Set standards of membership Training requirements Educational certification Professional practice Continuing education requirement Testing/examination Set standards of professional conduct Ethics Business practices Specialized knowledge/training There are 66 credited landscape architecture programs in 40 states; the first instruction was at Harvard in 1900. 1st professional degrees at both Bachelors and Masters level. UW-Madison only has a 1st professional Bachelors. Skills based on theoretical knowledge Understand the reason/theory behind what you are doing. Apply that theory to practice. Special training Certified educational program ? curricula/knowledge areas Continued training requirements Legal recognition 49 of the 50 states either have licensing or registration for landscape architects. Title laws ? began in 1954 in Louisiana and California. Practice acts ? prohibit unqualified individuals from calling themselves Landscape Architects as well as prohibiting them from providing landscape architecture services. Title acts ? only limits the use of the title Landscape Architect to those persons that are qualified based on specific standards. However, they place no limitations upon who can provide landscape architecture services. Necessity for having professions Lay people (people not educated in that knowledge area) cannot effectively evaluate the effectiveness of practice. Significant impact to the general public from incompetent practice. Mutual exchange of definable conditions of value between government and a recognizable group. Government grants exclusive right of performance in a specific field. Professional licensing/registration Right to self govern Profession guarantees that the public is protected from incompetence, untrustworthiness, extortion, etc. (standards for membership). The Council of Landscape Architecture Registration Board: an organization that makes sure candidates into the profession have met all the requirements and oversees the L.A.R.E. Sections on the Landscape Architecture Registration Exam (L.A.R.E.) Project and construction administration Inventory, analysis, and program development Site design Design and construction documentation Grading drainage and stormwater management