I’ve found that sometimes we’re invited to participate in developing an integrated approach to maintenance and design, sometimes we have to assert the need for at least some role, and sometimes we’re denied the opportunity even to educate ourselves on an institution’s maintenance practices and standards so that we may adapt our design to the care it will receive.
Sadly, this is just one example of a broader phenomenon, which is the expectation that landscape architects play an ancillary role in overall project design, and little or no role in urban design, institutional growth, “branding,” long-range budgeting, strategic planning, land acquisition, architecture, land use, political strategy, fundraising … the list goes on. We are not qualified to do all of these things on a solo basis, but in fact few of these things happen on a solo basis. What our work and training qualify us to do is to be members of teams working on these things (and teamwork is something we know how to do too). Until we have a place at the tables where the big decisions, it’s going to continue to be deck chairs on the Titanic.
Deb
Toby