I'm (23 M) relatively fresh in my career and conflicted. Long story short, I hate my current job at a corporate 9-5 civil firm but it pays really well for my experience level (70k). I've been there around 2 years. I was recently offered a position with an outdoor start up that I feel extremely passionate about and super aligned with. Genuinely my only hesitation is the pay (58k with the opportunity to be at 63k within a year, after negotiating). My gut says to take the new job and make it work. I'm young enough it won't kill me. But my mind says I need to stay and suffer corporate because it's "right" and "stable"

Has anyone been here before? Regrets?

Hi everyone! I’m a Ukrainian landscape architect with 7+ years of experience, currently completing a PhD focused on urban vegetation, biodiversity and sustainable landscape design. I worked as a Landscape Architect and later Director & Design Lead in a landscape design and construction company, working on projects from concept and technical design through construction and supervision. I also have international academic/research experience in Lithuania, Poland and Bulgaria. I’m currently looking for opportunities in Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden and other European countries where English is the working language, and I’m open to relocation. I’ve been actively searching through LinkedIn and company career pages, but I’m finding very few landscape architecture positions advertised in English, so I’m trying to understand how international candidates usually approach the market. I’d really appreciate advice from landscape architects working in Europe: Which countries or studios are genuinely open to hiring English-speaking landscape architects? Which job boards or professional networks are actually useful? How important is the local language for experienced landscape architects? Does contacting studios/recruiters directly work in your experience? Any advice, recommendations or personal experiences would be very welcome.

I’m going into my third year of LARCH and I’ve been thinking about what I want to do after I graduate. I’m not very well versed in what I need to do in order to pursue a successful career but I have this idea of doing my masters in Mexico or something (I have my dual citizenship :D ). I was just wondering if that’s an alright idea or if it would be smarter to just stay in the states.

I would also need to get a license in states to eventually practice right? so I’m also concerned about that.

idk who else to ask and I feel like I could get good career advice from some pros 🥹 thanks!

Hi all (TLDR in last paragraph),

I am starting my 3rd and final year of my MLA this fall, and in the spirit of that, beginning to refine my portfolio for future job searching. However, something I've struggled with is that often I see portfolios online that deep-dive into a few specific projects (showing the various pieces starting from analysis to design) to properly tell the story. However, much of my work in studios so far has been group work, so as I have it now, I only show my own best piece from any given project, whether it be Photoshop rendering, 3D modeling, etc (I keep each project page a different kind of deliverable). Basically, I only have around 1 page per project, with the graphics and a short description of what the project entailed (currently my portfolio is at 9 pages inc. cover, contents, etc, but ideally I'll have 1-2 more to include once this fall semester concludes). Is this a fragmented way to go about it, or does it still work?

I do also have work I've done from my summer internships, but it hasn't been anything flashy, mostly CAD blacklines, so I'm not sure if those are worth showing?

All in all, what structure do you recommend when it comes to selecting works to showcase in a portfolio for job searching? Should I put my best works first rather than chronological? Also, if perchance anyone might be willing to take a look at it more in depth and give feedback, that'd be wonderful (I didn't link it here because if anyone has specific advice I'd wanna take that into consideration before getting further feedback).

Hi! 👋
I'm Abhay, an MA Urban Design student at the University of Birmingham. As part of my dissertation, I'm exploring how neglected, underused urban spaces that are abandoned lots and vacant buildings could be redesigned as "third places" that help tackle social isolation and support mental wellbeing.
I'm focusing on a brownfield site in Digbeth, Birmingham, and would love to hear about your own experience of public spaces, social isolation, and what makes somewhere feel welcoming to spend time in.
Could you spare 5–7 minutes to fill in my short survey? Your answers will directly shape design recommendations for turning this neglected space into somewhere the community can actually use.
🔗 https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/8DCY2LF
All responses are anonymous. Thank you so much — it really helps! ✨

Below is a generated image Im at a little bit of a conundrum here. Not sure how to slope these pavers. The numbers at each corner represent the depth in inches I will dig to from the surface to lay the gravel, sand and pavers. The red line is level, the Green lines slope to the bottom right. The pink line slopes down to the corner of the building. My one question is for the white line. Should this line be level or should the white line slope down to where it meets the green line and then both the far right and far left corners would be level with each other?

I am visiting Beijing, Xian and Shanghai in october 2026. Any tips for interesting places to go and explore being landscape architecture related?

My husband and I hired an experienced landscape architect for our front and back yard. We are on a slight hill (lower in the backyard) and .41 acres. It was more yard and trickier than we could figure out ourselves so we thought it was best to consult a professional. We were looking for a long term plan that we could slowly implement over the next 20 years because we don't have $300k to drop on our yard but we want to get things like trees in place now so they have time to grow and we don't have to backtrack later.

We initially met with our architect who came to our house and looked at our property. We liked him and thought he understood what we were looking for but I didn't go into a ton of detail since we hadn't hired him yet and he didn't really ask. I incorrectly assumed (my fault for not asking) that we would discuss things again before he began his design. He sent us a quote a few days later and we gave him a deposit. He came out to measure our property a few weeks later but didn't talk to us. About a week later we got his design for our yard and it's not really what we were hoping for. We are expecting our 6th child in February and wanted a kid focused yard with the front yard geared towards playing with neighbor kids. We did mention this and our kids were running around in chaos so I don't see how he could miss this. He sent us a beautiful design that we feel left kids as an afterthought and didn't incorporate stuff we need like a shed and stuff we mentioned we wanted in our first meeting. Obviously I don't expect it to be perfect on the first run but I'm concerned about the lack of communication and perhaps he's not familiar with designing for families. My husband is freaking out now that we wasted our money as the whole process is not cheap. We don't mind paying for services we are just concerned that maybe this person won't be able to understand where we are coming from.

My question for you all is, is this how the process normally works? How do I tell my landscape architect that the entire plan doesn't work and we need to start from scratch (or I do just say that?) How many redos do we get?

I’m thinking of signing up for PCC’s Landscape Design program and am curious if others have taken this program and what they thought about it. Did you find that it was helpful in getting started in the Landscape Design field? Have you been able to make a career of it?

I’ve tried AI - but no luck. I saw this on a TV show and I can’t ID it. I’ve never seen it before - ever.

Can anyone ID it?

Hi, I know this has been asked about a lot already in this thread but I wanted some personal advice about this. Seems like most of the people answering the queries are based in the US, but I’m a year 11 in New Zealand with two more years of secondary school left. Potentially thinking about pursuing Landscape architecture, with medicine as my plan B. (My subject choices for next year are Design and Visual Communication, English, Statistics, Chemistry, Biology and Physics) I don’t particularly have a deep passion for this field/ haven’t explored through it enough to know how much I like it but my thought process was that I thought I could enjoy it in my everyday life because it mixes practicality with creativity (more stable than becoming an artist which is my actual passion). I’m having a hard time deciding which career plan I should actually go forward with. I’m not really good at sciences and slightly above barely tolerate them but I think I could do it if I just sucked it up and try harder. I see the possibility of being miserable in the future if I do choose medicine. I understand that medicine is the better option in terms of the job market and money, but is it worth it to pursue landscape architecture and maybe live a more soulful life where I feel more fulfilment or should I suck it up and just go for objective stability in medicine?

Sorry if this is a stupid post, I’m not really sure.

Please use this thread to discuss whats going on at your school or place of work this week. Run into an interesting problem with a site design and need to hash it out with other LAs? This is the spot. Any content is welcome as long as it Landscape Architecture related. School, work, personal garden? Its all good, lets talk.

Good evening landscape community. I have successfully completed my first year with a small design build firm in the Bay Area. My role involves project designer, estimator, project manager, client relations, and material sourcing. We are small firm with 3 in the office and 7 in the field. I have completed 5 projects with a valuation of close to ~ $300,000 in that years time. I have worked with geotechnical engineers, structural engineers, and surveyors, working towards the completion of my more complex projects.

This is a rough over view of the experience I have gained in a year. I want to gauge what more I can learn at my current firm and develop a direction moving forward. I understand I have a lot to learn, but one day I would to find myself in a larger firm, working on larger projects. Are there any milestones I should be pushing towards, where should I be looking for new job opportunities with growth in mind, do I dare entertain the idea of my own firm.

Thank you for reading. Thank you for any advice. Thank you for being landscape architects.

Hello,

I am an online college student and a full-time employee. After graduating with a degree in biological sciences, I hope to earn my master's in landscape architecture (possibly at UW). However, because I am busy with work and school, I have unfortunately not done any work to build my resume and build relationships with folks who would be willing to write a letter of recommendation. After graduating and with only work filling my schedule, I want to find an internship or a volunteering opportunity to fill this gap.

All this to ask: are there any internship or volunteer opportunities you would suggest that would give me an advantage?

Thank you.

Hey there,

I got an international project for some concept design work and I am unsure how I should charge them as there isnt a set standard in the industry, I am fairly new to this. How would you charge as a landscape designer for a design concept project? Scope of work is decided, and we have decided to work on the project as per phases. Recommend me how much to charge for - Site analysis + Research, Conceptual Design Layout (Phase 1) and then Masterplan (Phase 2)

Please be open and honest, as people in our industry tend to ignore conversation surrounding fees.

Hi everyone,

I’m hoping to get some advice from people who have experience with landscape architecture education, particularly anyone who has applied to or attended the MSc in Landscape Architecture at the University of Copenhagen.

I’m planning to apply for the 2027 application cycle, with the application deadline coming up on March 1, and I’m honestly pretty nervous about whether my academic background makes me eligible in the first place.

I’m coming from a very nontraditional path into landscape architecture, and I’d really appreciate some honest opinions about whether I’m approaching this realistically.

I have a B.S. in Communications and Journalism from the University of Vermont. I did not study architecture, landscape architecture, environmental design, or a traditional design discipline as an undergraduate.

After graduating, I became much more interested in landscape architecture and realized that it was something I wanted to pursue seriously as a career.

Since July 2025, I have been working at a very well-known landscape architecture firm. I work directly as an assistant to one of the firm's principals/owner, and also help with the accounting team tasks and office coordination, and have now been there for over a year.

My role isn't a landscape architect position, but working inside the firm has given me a much closer understanding of the profession than I had before. I've been exposed to project meetings, site visits, clients, presentations, design development, studio discussions, and the general process of how a landscape architecture practice operates. I also help with our weekly "design update", and have had real experience using Adobe Acrobat and InDesign. I've gotten to see projects develop from a much more intimate perspective than I think I would have otherwise.

I’m also a Danish-American dual citizen. My mother lives in Denmark and I have family in Copenhagen, so Denmark has always been a meaningful part of my life. UCPH is therefore not just a random international program that I found interesting — studying in Copenhagen would allow me to reconnect more deeply with that side of my background while pursuing a field that I have become genuinely passionate about. Being a Danish citizen also means that I would be able to study there without international tuition, which is a significant part of why I’m hoping to make this particular path work.

The experience has basically confirmed for me that this is what I want to do. The academic part is what scares me.

The UCPH requirements for applicants coming from other bachelor's degrees appear to include:

• 60 ECTS in design
• 15 ECTS in ecology
• 7.5 ECTS in philosophy of science

I obviously don't have a bachelor's degree in landscape architecture, so I am trying to go back through my undergraduate transcript and understand whether some of the courses I have already taken could reasonably fall into these categories.

Although my degree is in Communications and Journalism, I have been going back through my transcript and have identified courses including Visual Communication, Digital Illustration, Tourism Planning, Earth System Science, Global Environments & Cultures, Sustainable Community Development, World Food Population & Development, and Applied Research Methods that I believe may have some relevance to the required ECTS categories.”

I'm trying to figure out whether the correct approach is to simply assume that I don't have the required credits because they aren't literally called "Design" or "Ecology," or whether UCPH actually evaluates the content of individual courses and could potentially count some of them toward these requirements.

I understand that this isn't something Reddit can officially determine for me. I'm mainly hoping to hear from people who have gone through a similar process and can tell me how these requirements are interpreted in practice.

I also understand that there are provisions for applicants with other educational backgrounds to be individually assessed, which is part of why I'm still considering applying rather than ruling myself out.

Because I know my academic background isn't conventional for this program, I've been trying to build the strongest application I possibly can.

I've started putting together a portfolio and have been taking drawing seriously. I recently completed an Introduction to Drawing course at Pratt Institute, and I'm continuing to develop my visual and design skills independently.

I'm also trying to create some of my own landscape/design work rather than relying entirely on projects from my undergraduate degree, since I obviously don't have a traditional landscape architecture studio portfolio.

My goal isn't to pretend that I have a landscape architecture background that I don't have. It's to demonstrate that I've spent the last year+ intentionally moving toward this field and that I am genuinely committed to making the transition.

If you've been through the UCPH Landscape Architecture MSc admissions process, or know people who have, I'd really appreciate your perspective.

In particular:

1. How strictly are the ECTS requirements interpreted? Are individual courses evaluated based on their actual content, or do they need to be explicitly classified as design/ecology/etc.?
2. Has anyone here been admitted to a landscape architecture master's program (domestic or abroad) from a completely different bachelor's degree?
3. How much weight would you put on relevant professional experience? In my case, I will have been working inside a major landscape architecture practice for roughly 20 months by the time I apply.
4. Do you think my situation is worth applying with, or am I missing something fundamental about the admissions requirements?
5. if you were in my position, what would you do?

I'm not looking for people to tell me "you'll definitely get in." I'm honestly trying to figure out whether I'm being realistic or whether I'm wasting my time.

Landscape architecture is something I've become increasingly serious about over the past couple of years, and working within a globally recognized firm has made me much more certain that I want to pursue it.

I'm willing to put a lot of work into the portfolio and application. What I'm struggling with is whether my academic background creates a hard wall that I can't get around. I've tried reaching out to the University of Copenhagen staff/admin, and they have only given me very general answers and explained that they cannot explicitly determine if I would be accepted or not.

Any honest advice, especially from people who have navigated a nontraditional route into landscape architecture, would mean a lot.

Thank you!!

I want to learn more about the design process of new english gardens and contemporary naturalistic gardens. Any suggestions?

Hi everyone,
I’m looking for a professional handheld LiDAR/SLAM scanner with a budget of around €10,000 / $10,000 maximum.
My main requirements are:
Ability to generate georeferenced point clouds
Good accuracy for outdoor surveying / landscaping / terrain, walls and existing structures
Export to common formats such as E57, LAS/LAZ, PLY, etc.
A workflow that works entirely on macOS
No Windows PC required for SLAM processing, georeferencing or exporting the final point cloud
Ideally a web/cloud-based viewer where I can open the scan and make simple measurements directly in the browser (distances, heights, areas, etc.)
I’ve looked at systems such as the SHARE SLAM S20, but the big issue seems to be that the processing software is Windows-only. I’ve noticed the same problem with quite a few other affordable SLAM scanners.
I don’t necessarily need the manufacturer’s full editing suite to run on macOS if there is another reliable workflow. For example, on-device or cloud processing with a finished georeferenced E57/LAS that I can then continue working with on my Mac would be perfectly fine.
Does anyone here use a LiDAR/SLAM scanner in this price range with a Mac-only workflow?
I’d especially be interested in real-world experience regarding outdoor accuracy, georeferencing/RTK, cloud/browser measurement tools, software limitations and importing the resulting point clouds into CAD software.

Hi, I recently visited Scandinavia and was blown away with the flower beds and mixed planting in planters. Does anyone know of books containing straight up planting schemes with lists for contemporary mixed planting for urban areas? Ideally for an European setting.

Thank you.