“You’re going to spend your entire career explaining what you do.”
The college professor who told me that could not have been more right! So, what’s a landscape architect?
Well, the landscape architect is responsible for the design of the built environment from the exterior walls of the building outward – in other words, everything outside the building. This includes, for example, the walkways, retaining walls, the streets, and even how a building is positioned on a property.
There is a lot of overlap (and bumping heads) between landscape architects and civil engineers. However, the engineer’s involvement is a little more technical, while the landscape architect’s focus is more) on the human elements – and the aesthetics.
If you’re doing anything large-scale or commercial, in most large cities you have to have a landscape architect on the team.
Design for Today – and Tomorrow
I started out in architecture at the University of Texas, Arlington. For the first two years, architecture, interior design, and landscape architecture all shared the same core curriculum. One of our courses consisted of lectures from practitioners in all three disciplines. One speaker, a landscape architect, captivated me with the images – all this color and all these curves all over the place. Whereas, after a year and a half in architecture, all I’d been looking at was black and white and straight lines. But this guy’s presentation really stuck with me. He said: landscape architects have to design for today – and the future – of their projects. Projects will evolve over the years.
That fascinated me. Landscape architecture is not static. Plus, at the time, architects were struggling to find work. Landscape architecture was a smaller pond – I decided to take a chance on it.
How Did You Get Started?
I started my business in 2008, right at the time of the big real estate crash. I had by then been laid off from a job, and I was tired of getting a pink slip at every economic downturn – after making lots of money for my bosses. I’d had enough of that. So I jumped into my own business.
It started off a little too easy. I got my first contracts just by cold calling architects, civil engineering firms, and landscape contractors that didn’t have a designer on staff. After only about eight months I got a project with the State University of New York – SUNY, in Purchase, N.Y. (I lived in Long Island at the time). It was a gymnasium and dining facility renovation project – several million dollars worth of renovations. That sustained us for a while. But residential clients were hard to find: people aren’t thinking about renovating their backyards when they don’t know if they’ll be able to make their house notes. But we managed to make it through.
During that period, we relocated the family to the D.C. area. It was 2012, and things were still hard in New York. We visited on a family trip, and we both loved the area. And it seemed like people in my profession were still working, so that was a lure. We took a chance.
Why Montgomery County?
What we liked in D.C. we could not afford. On the way back to the highway via Georgia Avenue, we found ourselves in Downtown Silver Spring and saw a huge apartment at a good price. After what we’d been through in New York, we decided to take it and figure the rest out after we’ve been here awhile. So that’s how we ended up in the County. And I ran up and down to NY for a few years while I established a clientele here.
After about a year, I got on a project with a multifaith development corporation in Baltimore that was building a senior living facility on the north side. After that, I worked the referrals from that job. So, I have about five or six built projects in Baltimore and a few more on the drawing board. In D.C., we have a couple of roof garden projects in DC. Our work in Northern Virginia has been all residential. All I’ve done in Montgomery County is residential. I’m going on a full-on marketing campaign for Montg County and DC – there’s a lot of business, and I need to get some of it.
Who Would You Like to Meet?
In 2023, we’d like to do more commercial work in all jurisdictions. So I’d like to meet architects. About 90% of my work comes through architects. We’d like to work in public spaces: boardwalks, parks, and waterfronts. I’m looking to land those kinds of projects as a sole practitioner.
Multifamily residential/retail is my specialty. I’ve done university campuses and business parks. We’re competing with big firms for these kinds of projects, so it has been a challenge. Technology has helped me out a lot. There are a lot of design applications and platforms in my field – I’m doing the work that a 10-person firm would have done 20 years ago. But there are limits to how much tech can help you before you need personnel.
My Best Advice for Newer Businesses
My advice for up and comers is to nurture your connections. The best thing you can do is learn how to get to know diverse people, how to talk with people – and then to maintain those relationships. Stay in touch with people that you meet. That will help you out a long way.
