More Than Plants: Landscape architects say public misunderstands their role in development

Landscape architects have been professionally recognized in the United States for more than 100 years – Frederick Law Olmstead, considered to be the founding father of the field in the United States, designed New York City’s Central Park.

Local practitioners, however, say many people don’t understand the full scope of what landscape architects can bring to a project.

“We work with everything outside the building,” said Frank Zanaboni, landscape architect and vice president at Butler, Rosenbury & Partners, the firm charged with redesigning Springfield’s Park Central Square. “We try to get the man-made and Mother Nature to work together as best we can.”

According to the Missouri Board for Architects, Professional Engineers, Professional Land Surveyors and Landscape Architects, Missouri currently has 302 active licensed landscape architects, which Zanaboni said is nearly double the number in the state when he got his Missouri license in 1995.

A varied field

One of the biggest challenges in the landscape architecture field is getting people to realize that it’s about more than just choosing the right tree for a particular spot.

“It’s not just about plants and irrigation,” said Jane Earnhart, a landscape architect and project manager with Scott Consulting Engineers. “We can do grading, we can do streetscapes, trails, parks and a lot more. People hear the word landscape and they think (of) their front yard.”

Among Butler Rosenbury’s current projects that include landscape architecture is the Park Central Square redesign. Butler Rosenbury is working in cooperation with New York-based Projects for Public Spaces to redesign the square to improve traffic flow and increase space for outdoor dining and activities.

But the field isn’t just about aesthetics. Zanaboni said landscape projects serve a variety of purposes from controlling the flow of storm water to entertainment to public safety.

One example of the latter category: the streetscape project on East Trafficway in front of Hammons Field, where the typical left-turn lane was replaced with a median filled with trees and plants.

Zanaboni said the median funnels crowds of people to the crosswalks rather than letting them wander across the street, and the visual of flowers and trees encourages drivers to slow down.

But contrary to public perception, Zanaboni said, plant design is just a fraction of what landscape architects do.

“It’s like putting the icing on the cake – once you’ve got the cake done, icing it is the easy part,” he said. “Plants are easy – it’s everything that goes into making the site successful beforehand that’s key.”

That “beforehand” work includes dealing with city, parking and green-space requirements and working with civil engineers to make sure storm water goes where it’s supposed to go and doesn’t move too fast, and installing proper irrigation to make sure that a landscape design that can cost thousands of dollars doesn’t die early on.

The professional link

Landscape architects – who have to go through a rigorous licensing process (see box) – can be found in both architecture and engineering firms.

“We help bring together the architects and the engineers, because we have common threads between the two,” Earnhart said. “Architects usually handle the building, and a lot of times they’ll go past that and do some site design. But the engineers are involved with that also – they have to handle the storm water and paving issues. We kind of are a blending of both of those.”

John Hissink, a landscape architect with Great River Engineering and a 35-year industry veteran, said he often works with engineers on site grading and planning, in order to create the most pleasant-looking development with the least environmental impact on the site.

He added that the landscape architect’s background gives him a different perspective; he said an architect, an engineer and a landscape architect, if presented with the same piece of land, might offer three different solutions.

“They sometimes think in squares, and I think more curvilinear,” Hissink said.

Going public

Many landscape architects don’t end up in the private sector at all. Some work for municipalities, bringing their expertise to city and state projects. Among them is Joe Payne, a licensed landscape architect and Public Works operations supervisor for the city of Springfield.

Payne said he works with local, private-sector landscape architects on civic projects such as waterways and streetscapes, including recent Grand Street and Walnut Lawn Avenue parkway projects.

“What I do is work with them, focusing on sustainability in the projects,” Payne said.

The variety of specialties and skills is why Zanaboni loves his industry, and also why he thinks the numbers are growing.

“Every landscape architect will probably give you a different definition of the job, which is neat,” he said. “As the knowledge of what we do grows, the need for our services becomes more apparent.”

Requirements for Landscape Architect Licensure

Landscape architects, like others in the architecture field, have to go through a long process to earn the landscape architect designation.

According to the Missouri Board for Architects, Professional Engineers, Professional Land Surveyors and Landscape Architects, anyone who wants to be licensed must first have a degree in landscape architecture from an accredited school – a requirement that local landscape architect Frank Zanaboni said can’t be obtained in Missouri.

“There are schools all over the country, but there aren’t any in Missouri,” he said. “You have to go to Kansas, Arkansas or Oklahoma.”

After obtaining a degree, graduates must work three years for a licensed landscape architect and take the national Landscape Architect Registration Examination before they file for licensure in Missouri.