I was recently approached by a couple of parents who are part of the group of officers of a 'parent owned' sports club. This club has been offering programs to area kids and adults for decades. They had been renting facility space for their club and had what seemed like an iron-clad lease. Recently, they were informed that they would no longer be allowed to use that space and were actually given a very short period of time to leave and to find a new 'home'. They found a property with some infrastructure already in place. This site would need additional work to bring it up to a point where it will provide for their needs.
What they did not really know is that it also would need work to bring it up to code. It seemed to be a logical approach to the problem at hand. They needed a new space and no longer wanted to be in the situation of being at the mercy of some other entity who could simply throw them out with very little lead time. Their next step most likely also seemed logical to them but might have created huge problems for them in their future endeavors. They interviewed and then hired a contractor, reasoning that the work that needed to be done, including the addition of a structural roof over a part of the facility, was the sole realm of a contractor. The contractor in-turn told them that the structural part needed to be designed by an architect and recommended one. So, they then hired the contractor-recommended architect.
This may not seem to be a poor choice in approach to the uninitiated. However, anyone who has dealt with projects within a city or county jurisdiction could probably tell you that this is really not a good way to go if you plan to have a successful project. First of all, you have no way to compare costs and no idea going into the project what you will ultimately be required to spend in order to obtain your final needs. I met with them and tried to let them know this, but ultimately this was most probably too late to help them. They had signed contracts with two service providers - the contractor and the architect - which they did in hast because they feared being without facilities and the damage that that situation might cause to their club.
A better way to approach this kind of problem is to first realize that projects involving land and structures cannot be expected to be completed quickly. These parents should have found temporary rental space to buy them time. The first step that I would have recommend they take is to hire a landscape architect or civil engineer to provide them with a due diligence study. This would give them some idea of potential pitfalls, legal and code requirements, time to completion and costs. I have often been able to determine, after doing a due diligence, that a site is not fit for the proposed use or that a critical utility such as electricity, water or sanitary sewer is not available and extending them is more expensive than the use can sustain. Sometimes the steps required to complete a project, such as re-zoning or a petitioned change in the land use plan, are just too time consuming and the project would take longer than the client can feasibly wait. It is better to find that out before the project is initiated or the property is actually purchased.
After the due diligence, the client can make an informed decision as to whether to procede with the project on that site or to walk away. If they choose to procede, the next step is to build the design team. You can do this by hiring one of the team and letting them put together the rest or by hiring the individuals separately. This team will most likely have a surveyor (to provide the boundary, topography and tree survey), a landscape architect (to provide the site layout and design and to provide site plan submissions), a civil engineer (to work with the utilities, stormwater and other aspects of the site development) and an architect (to provide the design of the structure). The architect will often then add a structural engineer and a mechanical engineer to their individual team.
Once a team is organized, the client will need to meet with them and they will need to produce a set of plans. These plans will have to be submitted to the local planning department for site plan review. This review will cover the site design and layout, proposed grading of the site, planting, tree protection, erosion control and stormwater design. It will also have elevations and proposed floor plans for whatever structures that might be proposed. Once site plans have been reviewed and approved, construction plans will need to be produced. These will also be reviewed and approved. These will provide the information that a contractor will need in order to build the site and the structures, including the architectural plans. With the approved construction plans, the client can then go to a number of contractors and have them bid on the the construction. By doing this, they get an opportunity to compare quotes and an opportunity to keep the cost of the project within a budget. They can also then have the opportunity to filter out contractors who simply cannot meet their time budget.
Obviously, my parent group will not have that opportunity. They are now at the mercy of the contractor who is free to continue to pile on costs. It is vitally important to a project to get the tasks required and the people who will perform them put together in the correct order. Otherwise, you risk a project that is either never completed or is completed over budget and hugely late.
Showing posts with label Landscape architect. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Landscape architect. Show all posts
Thursday, August 15, 2013
Sunday, May 19, 2013
Follow the Advice of the Expert You Hired. Don't Get Sold a Bill of Goods.
I am often baffled at the amount of credence and trust that some people will give to various people around them. How many times have you heard someone ask for advice concerning what to plant or how to amend their soil of the salesperson at the retail 'nursery' or worse still at the local home improvement store. Why would that person be more likely to know anything more about those topics over the person asking? They are most likely not involved in growing those plants that they sell. Chances are that they are really nothing more than sales people. Yes, occasionally you will come across a plant store that actually grows the plants that they sell and the people who work there would have a bit more background that would allow them to actually answer questions about the plants. That situation is the exception though; not the norm. Besides, there is a big difference between growing plants to sell in pots and raising plants on your site to maturity.
I have a friend who engaged me to provide her with a bioretention pond design for her home site. This pond was being built because her site was located in a watershed district and had a limit on the percent of the site that could be impervious. She was hoping to enlarge her home which would have created a situation in which her impervious surface area was increased beyond her limit. Bioretention is basically a place on the site that is designed in such a way as to capture surface water and give it time to soak, or infiltrate, into the ground. To enhance this infiltration, the area is dug out and the original soil replaced with a soil mixture that enhances water infiltration because it contains a great deal of pore space. The surface of this dug area, the 'bio' part, is covered with plants. Thus my plan included a planting plan with a specific plant list. Plants on this list were very carefully selected because they were capable of existing under the conditions that the bioretention would create. They must be able to survive under both flooded conditions and extremely dry conditions. After all, a bioretention area is designed to drain water into the surrounding soil, not hold it, and therefore when it is not filled with water it will become extremely dry.
After my friend had planted her bioretention area she called to make sure that she had done the right thing. She had gone to a retail nursery - in reality a local plant store - and found that they did not have the plants that were listed on my plan. This is something that I had told her to expect when I gave her the plan and a listing of places where she could locate the plants on the list. The sales lady that she asked told her that she should simply make substitutions; she did not need to use those plants. She then proceeded to 'recommend' plants to buy and use instead. As my friend began the litany of substitutions I was once again stunned. One plant 'recommended' really does not grow this far south, although it would do quite well in Michigan. One, if it survived which is highly unlikely, would grow great in extreme drought but die when water pooled around its base for the requisite 48 hours. Another would die as soon as the basin dried up, which would be the majority of the year. In other words, she had been sold a host of plants that would not survive and which she could not return.
My question to her was this. Why did you bother to have me spend time on your plan if you were going to take the advise of a salesman instead? That salesman was obviously out to make a sale period. She did not know what you wanted or needed. She simply wanted to make money off of your ignorance about that one subject and you readily fell into her trap.
I see the same thing happen time and time again with salesmen and also with contractors who because they have built something have suddenly become the expert. Are they really an expert? What has their past performance really been like? Did it hold up ten years down the road or did it need to be replaced or rebuilt? If you are hiring an expert, follow their advice. They do that for a living and most likely carry a good deal of training and experience to the table. Don't get fooled into exchanging that expert advice for that of a good salesman (whether it be at the plant store or a pitch by the contractor). That salesman is most likely to simply make a fool out of you and rob you of your hard earned cash.
I have a friend who engaged me to provide her with a bioretention pond design for her home site. This pond was being built because her site was located in a watershed district and had a limit on the percent of the site that could be impervious. She was hoping to enlarge her home which would have created a situation in which her impervious surface area was increased beyond her limit. Bioretention is basically a place on the site that is designed in such a way as to capture surface water and give it time to soak, or infiltrate, into the ground. To enhance this infiltration, the area is dug out and the original soil replaced with a soil mixture that enhances water infiltration because it contains a great deal of pore space. The surface of this dug area, the 'bio' part, is covered with plants. Thus my plan included a planting plan with a specific plant list. Plants on this list were very carefully selected because they were capable of existing under the conditions that the bioretention would create. They must be able to survive under both flooded conditions and extremely dry conditions. After all, a bioretention area is designed to drain water into the surrounding soil, not hold it, and therefore when it is not filled with water it will become extremely dry.
After my friend had planted her bioretention area she called to make sure that she had done the right thing. She had gone to a retail nursery - in reality a local plant store - and found that they did not have the plants that were listed on my plan. This is something that I had told her to expect when I gave her the plan and a listing of places where she could locate the plants on the list. The sales lady that she asked told her that she should simply make substitutions; she did not need to use those plants. She then proceeded to 'recommend' plants to buy and use instead. As my friend began the litany of substitutions I was once again stunned. One plant 'recommended' really does not grow this far south, although it would do quite well in Michigan. One, if it survived which is highly unlikely, would grow great in extreme drought but die when water pooled around its base for the requisite 48 hours. Another would die as soon as the basin dried up, which would be the majority of the year. In other words, she had been sold a host of plants that would not survive and which she could not return.
My question to her was this. Why did you bother to have me spend time on your plan if you were going to take the advise of a salesman instead? That salesman was obviously out to make a sale period. She did not know what you wanted or needed. She simply wanted to make money off of your ignorance about that one subject and you readily fell into her trap.
I see the same thing happen time and time again with salesmen and also with contractors who because they have built something have suddenly become the expert. Are they really an expert? What has their past performance really been like? Did it hold up ten years down the road or did it need to be replaced or rebuilt? If you are hiring an expert, follow their advice. They do that for a living and most likely carry a good deal of training and experience to the table. Don't get fooled into exchanging that expert advice for that of a good salesman (whether it be at the plant store or a pitch by the contractor). That salesman is most likely to simply make a fool out of you and rob you of your hard earned cash.
Saturday, April 13, 2013
Landscape Architects Provide More Than Yard Work!
Landscape Architects work hard at very complex issues to provide their clients with quality design. That design encompasses many aspects of the built site including such diverse tasks as master planning of the long term development of a site, designing and locating the various features or elements that will become the ultimate site (such as the drive or roadways, buildings, pedestrian and bike access, parking, stormwater structures, the shape of the earth and the plants that cover it), urban design, and working with municipalities and counties to obtain correct zoning and in some cases to define that zoning. We specify products to be installed on a site and design and detail items to be constructed on a site, and we help to design and plan urban communities. Despite all that the profession encompasses, we suffer an image problem. People simply have no idea what we do and how we can help them with their site.
This problem might be a result of the lack of exposure and numbers that we have in the profession. After all, there are approximately 16,000 licensed landscape architects spread out throughout the United States. Licensed Architects number 104,000, and Civil Engineers have approximately 265,000 licensees. Landscape Architects are simply lost in the shuffle. This fact slapped me in the face once again this week. Three separate things happened to really bring that to my attention.
The first was an e-mail that I received from the North Carolina Board of Landscape Architects. It was an official document defining the scope of the practice. This defines the profession and the requirements to become a licensed Landscape Architect. There has been a good deal of overlap of three closely related professions with licensed professionals selling services that they were not necessarily trained to perform. Architects often provide site design - even crudely delving into grading, drainage and planting - without the training and skills. Civil Engineers are trained to do site design but not all aspects of the site plan and they tend to have a more mechanical approach to the whole design because design and artistry are lacking in their training. By the same token, some Landscape Architects delve into building or roadway design beyond what their skills would dictate. Then there are the landscape designers who have no training at all and who attempt to sell their services to do just about anything. Fortunately, for sites that require a site plan to be submitted to a governing authority, they are excluded because they also have no license and carry no liability for anything that goes wrong as a result of their mistakes. These cross-overs have become more frequent with a bad economy where people are desperate for work.
The second reminder came in the form of requests from two women that I know from various parent organizations at my son's high school. I am sure that they were well intentioned and attempting to show some deference to my profession. I am equally sure that they had no idea just how insulting their queries were. Both asked if I knew of anyone who could help them with their yard work. One wanted a tree to be taken down and the other had shrubs to prune. I actually did know someone and gave them a reference, but I only know that person because we happen to sing in the same community choir. I honestly don't know of any yard maintenance people other then the usual number that any homeowner might come into contact with.
Finally, I have had the privilege to jury entries to the Virginia ASLA awards for 2013. There were over thirty and some of the design entries were simply amazing. It really brought home the breath and scope of what we are doing as a profession. I got to review designs of pedestrian malls, roof gardens and campuses as well as of farms and single family residences with amazing spaces. I also got to see a number of intriguing site analyses and master plans. What at first seemed as though it would be an insurmountable task became a huge blessing to me. Bravo Virginia! Your design work is fantastic. It is a nearly impossible task to pick out a best from these entries. It reminded me of just why I got into this profession and what we are capable of doing if given the chance.
We cannot get the chance to be this creative though unless potential clients realize what we can do for them and how that differs from what closely related professions can provide. ASLA, the American Society of Landscape Architects, provides a nice concise description of the profession; visit their website at: http://www.asla.org. You might just be very surprised to find out what we can do. In the meantime, we as Landscape Architects need to keep plugging education and exposure. We have a lot to overcome in order to be understood.
This problem might be a result of the lack of exposure and numbers that we have in the profession. After all, there are approximately 16,000 licensed landscape architects spread out throughout the United States. Licensed Architects number 104,000, and Civil Engineers have approximately 265,000 licensees. Landscape Architects are simply lost in the shuffle. This fact slapped me in the face once again this week. Three separate things happened to really bring that to my attention.
The first was an e-mail that I received from the North Carolina Board of Landscape Architects. It was an official document defining the scope of the practice. This defines the profession and the requirements to become a licensed Landscape Architect. There has been a good deal of overlap of three closely related professions with licensed professionals selling services that they were not necessarily trained to perform. Architects often provide site design - even crudely delving into grading, drainage and planting - without the training and skills. Civil Engineers are trained to do site design but not all aspects of the site plan and they tend to have a more mechanical approach to the whole design because design and artistry are lacking in their training. By the same token, some Landscape Architects delve into building or roadway design beyond what their skills would dictate. Then there are the landscape designers who have no training at all and who attempt to sell their services to do just about anything. Fortunately, for sites that require a site plan to be submitted to a governing authority, they are excluded because they also have no license and carry no liability for anything that goes wrong as a result of their mistakes. These cross-overs have become more frequent with a bad economy where people are desperate for work.
The second reminder came in the form of requests from two women that I know from various parent organizations at my son's high school. I am sure that they were well intentioned and attempting to show some deference to my profession. I am equally sure that they had no idea just how insulting their queries were. Both asked if I knew of anyone who could help them with their yard work. One wanted a tree to be taken down and the other had shrubs to prune. I actually did know someone and gave them a reference, but I only know that person because we happen to sing in the same community choir. I honestly don't know of any yard maintenance people other then the usual number that any homeowner might come into contact with.
Finally, I have had the privilege to jury entries to the Virginia ASLA awards for 2013. There were over thirty and some of the design entries were simply amazing. It really brought home the breath and scope of what we are doing as a profession. I got to review designs of pedestrian malls, roof gardens and campuses as well as of farms and single family residences with amazing spaces. I also got to see a number of intriguing site analyses and master plans. What at first seemed as though it would be an insurmountable task became a huge blessing to me. Bravo Virginia! Your design work is fantastic. It is a nearly impossible task to pick out a best from these entries. It reminded me of just why I got into this profession and what we are capable of doing if given the chance.
We cannot get the chance to be this creative though unless potential clients realize what we can do for them and how that differs from what closely related professions can provide. ASLA, the American Society of Landscape Architects, provides a nice concise description of the profession; visit their website at: http://www.asla.org. You might just be very surprised to find out what we can do. In the meantime, we as Landscape Architects need to keep plugging education and exposure. We have a lot to overcome in order to be understood.
Friday, August 17, 2012
Know your Landscape Consultant
Fifteen years ago, a friend of mine very proudly showed me her newly planted yard. "Isn't it great?" she asked. I looked around at the swath of Edward Goucher Glossy Abelia (a thinly evergreen shrub with small white flowers that attract masses of bees), the Southern Magnolia (not a dwarf hybrid variety, I might add - think 90' tall and 40' in spread at maturity) planted three feet from her front wall, the large area planted in Blue Rug Juniper, apparently as a ground cover, and all of the other assorted odd ball plants. I didn't want to hurt her feelings, but it looked terrible. But then beauty is in the eyes of the beholder and to someone who had just spent several thousand dollars on this mess it was gorgeous. There was no real design. Nothing really related to anything else and most of it denied the presence of a house being there at all. What was worse, it was going to be massively overgrown for her site in a couple of years. There was no permanence in it.
"This was done by a landscape designer," she proudly proclaimed. "If you want, I'll give you her name and number. She didn't even charge anything - the plan was free. All I had to do was buy the plants from her company and have them install them." I didn't have the heart to tell her that she had undoubtedly been massively ripped off. That 3 gal sized Edward Goucher Glossy Abelia was currently going for $4.50 a pot wholesale and installed by a reputable contractor would have cost her $30 each because there was a glut on the market (she paid $75 each installed and she had a dozen of them - tell me she didn't pay for the plan) and that most of the other stuff was a combination of plants that were very inexpensive and for the most part reduced that year because they had been overproduced by the nurseries. Her landscape designer had unloaded a ton of wholesale overage stock on her. This is not to say that she couldn't have gotten a good design using inexpensive stock - even exactly what she had planted in her yard. She just needed someone who knew the plant material and how to use it. A bit of design knowledge and ability would have helped as well.
Needless to say, last year she hired someone to rip it all out. Why? Because she couldn't see out of any of her front windows, her foundation was being cracked and the place looked like you needed to enter it with a machete - except of course for the large area of ground cover that had died and come back to life in the form of healthy crabgrass. Once again she has had it all replanted - by another landscape designer. I give it ten years. Fortunately for her, some of it has died already.
Few people understand the designations floating around out there concerning their site and it's design. Even fewer know what it takes to be trained and what the various trades offer.
A landscape designer is usually very informally trained by someone with whom they work. They might have started out just being interested in gardening and gone to work with a landscaper or someone doing grounds maintenance. Or perhaps they started out working with a retail nursery - most of which buy their plants already grown out and ready to sell. There is no formal training and no licensure. A landscape designer does not even need to know how to read to do their job. They simply place plants on a site - sometimes on a drawing and then a site and sometimes the drawing is not even provided. Some are quite good at what they do and have a great sense of design and feel for the plant material, but that is not necessary for them to call themselves a landscape designer.
A master gardener is another designation thrown around a good deal. People like to think that they are getting superior assistance and advice if they are getting it from a master gardener. They are getting a more trained person in a master gardener than in a landscape designer. Most come into the avocation with an interest in gardening. The program is actually a Cooperative Extension Agency program and usually requires 40 contact hours of training - that's right, the equivalent of one normal work week. In exchange for the training, the gardener agrees to volunteer their gardening expertise and services to the program.
A Landscape Architect is a licensed professional who at the minimum holds a degree in Landscape Architecture, has completed a period of internship and has passed a rigorous licensure exam. While they do provide planting plans, they are also involved in site planning and design development for parks, campuses, churches, housing developments, commercial and office developments. They deal with the land in terms of how it is shaped (called grading), where and with what force the rain water flows over a site (called storm water or drainage design), how soil is contained on the site during construction (called erosion control), how the elements such as the buildings, driveways, parking and walks are located on the site (called staking), and how the site elements are to be constructed. They have a good deal of training in design and in the related fields of horticulture, geology, micro climatology, earth science, environmental psychology, geography, ecology, architecture, industrial design and fine art.
Anyone can call themselves a landscape designer and in many cases their help is all you need. Unfortunately, if the designer goofs, there is no recourse because they are not licensed. You get to tear it out and do it over at your own expense - like my poor friend who will be doing that again shortly. It is illegal to call yourself a landscape architect without a license and that license guarantees that the professional you hired is actually trained and regulated. So, when you are in the market for a design professional, make sure you get the expertise you need for the job required.
"This was done by a landscape designer," she proudly proclaimed. "If you want, I'll give you her name and number. She didn't even charge anything - the plan was free. All I had to do was buy the plants from her company and have them install them." I didn't have the heart to tell her that she had undoubtedly been massively ripped off. That 3 gal sized Edward Goucher Glossy Abelia was currently going for $4.50 a pot wholesale and installed by a reputable contractor would have cost her $30 each because there was a glut on the market (she paid $75 each installed and she had a dozen of them - tell me she didn't pay for the plan) and that most of the other stuff was a combination of plants that were very inexpensive and for the most part reduced that year because they had been overproduced by the nurseries. Her landscape designer had unloaded a ton of wholesale overage stock on her. This is not to say that she couldn't have gotten a good design using inexpensive stock - even exactly what she had planted in her yard. She just needed someone who knew the plant material and how to use it. A bit of design knowledge and ability would have helped as well.
Needless to say, last year she hired someone to rip it all out. Why? Because she couldn't see out of any of her front windows, her foundation was being cracked and the place looked like you needed to enter it with a machete - except of course for the large area of ground cover that had died and come back to life in the form of healthy crabgrass. Once again she has had it all replanted - by another landscape designer. I give it ten years. Fortunately for her, some of it has died already.
Few people understand the designations floating around out there concerning their site and it's design. Even fewer know what it takes to be trained and what the various trades offer.
A landscape designer is usually very informally trained by someone with whom they work. They might have started out just being interested in gardening and gone to work with a landscaper or someone doing grounds maintenance. Or perhaps they started out working with a retail nursery - most of which buy their plants already grown out and ready to sell. There is no formal training and no licensure. A landscape designer does not even need to know how to read to do their job. They simply place plants on a site - sometimes on a drawing and then a site and sometimes the drawing is not even provided. Some are quite good at what they do and have a great sense of design and feel for the plant material, but that is not necessary for them to call themselves a landscape designer.
A master gardener is another designation thrown around a good deal. People like to think that they are getting superior assistance and advice if they are getting it from a master gardener. They are getting a more trained person in a master gardener than in a landscape designer. Most come into the avocation with an interest in gardening. The program is actually a Cooperative Extension Agency program and usually requires 40 contact hours of training - that's right, the equivalent of one normal work week. In exchange for the training, the gardener agrees to volunteer their gardening expertise and services to the program.
A Landscape Architect is a licensed professional who at the minimum holds a degree in Landscape Architecture, has completed a period of internship and has passed a rigorous licensure exam. While they do provide planting plans, they are also involved in site planning and design development for parks, campuses, churches, housing developments, commercial and office developments. They deal with the land in terms of how it is shaped (called grading), where and with what force the rain water flows over a site (called storm water or drainage design), how soil is contained on the site during construction (called erosion control), how the elements such as the buildings, driveways, parking and walks are located on the site (called staking), and how the site elements are to be constructed. They have a good deal of training in design and in the related fields of horticulture, geology, micro climatology, earth science, environmental psychology, geography, ecology, architecture, industrial design and fine art.
Anyone can call themselves a landscape designer and in many cases their help is all you need. Unfortunately, if the designer goofs, there is no recourse because they are not licensed. You get to tear it out and do it over at your own expense - like my poor friend who will be doing that again shortly. It is illegal to call yourself a landscape architect without a license and that license guarantees that the professional you hired is actually trained and regulated. So, when you are in the market for a design professional, make sure you get the expertise you need for the job required.
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