Whenever I tell people I’ll be studying landscape architecture, they usually dismiss it as architecture…and I don’t blame you if you did the same thing. I originally wanted to study architecture because, well, I didn’t even know landscape architecture existed! After some exploration, the deciding factor for me was that the things I could create in studying landscape architecture had potential. An architect can design a building and the outcome would remain the same for the next 100 years. But a landscape architect can create a place that could take 20 or more years for it to grow into its envisioned character.
This concept was really eye-opening for me, and I’m sure it is for many people. My career advisor was telling me that one time, her husband had designed a really beautiful community playground/park. A parent was telling her how much she admired the design–if only they had planted bigger trees. To that, she replied that trees don’t come as adults! This, as hilarious of an anecdote it is, demonstrated that these types pf designs require so much thought because they deal explicitly with time and the processes of natural systems.
In a reading from Beatly earlier this month, I read that “genuine places have the potential to be profoundly more interesting and stimulating.” For me, this means that a place provides more than what meets the eye. It could be that a place has a deeper meaning to be found by its passersby, but personally, the clearest interpretation of this is the desire to explore. A great example of this is the Children’s Garden in the Arboretum. It is organized in a cluster-system which compels kids to wander and explore the different areas of learning (i.e. the bat cave, or the musical tree trunk).
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