Landscape architects break misconceptions and prep for capstone gallery
Reed Aren “When you’re walking down
the street what you’re walking on was designed by us, just about
everything outside is done by us.”
A senior in the College of
Agriculture said most people are unaware that landscape architecture is
much more than just dealing with a lawn; they are the architects of the
outdoors. For my first class in landscape architecture, my
teacher told us that we’re landscape designers, not landscapers, and
that’s a huge difference,” said Lianne Wu, a senior in the College of
Agriculture. “There are misconceptions; it’s hard to grasp because when
you hear landscape architecture, you think of architect, and when you
think of designer you think more of a graphic designer.”
Landscape design is a large field, and many people live
day-to-day seeing the work of landscape architects but not actually
comprehending who was responsible for that work. For example, many
famous landscapes and monuments were created by landscape architects.
“Central
Park was designed by a landscape architect, and monuments in Washington
were designed by landscape architects,” said Wu. “We design spaces that
highlight the best parts of places, invite people to spaces, help
people interact and have conversations or just a nice place to live. We
are even involved in different medical areas, like hospital gardens.”
Central
Park was an especially important project for landscape architects
because it paved the way for landscape design to become a profession in
the U.S.
Reed Aren, a junior in the College of Agriculture, has
known about landscape architecture since he was 10 years old and joined
the major with aspirations of designing golf courses in the future. Aren
had the opportunity to help renovate Purdue’s Ackerman-Allen golf
course last summer and will be working on a project for Google this
summer.
“The firm I’m working for in the summer just found out that we’ll be designing the Google headquarters in Texas,” said Aren.
Another
misconception about landscape design is that it only deals with the
environment. However, Aren said that landscape architecture can be
corporate or urban as well as environmental, depending on the project.
Most of the experiences people have outdoors were made possible by a
landscape architect.
“When you’re walking down the street, what
you’re walking on was designed by us, just about everything outside is
done by us,” said Aren. “The Purdue Engineering Mall was designed by a
landscape architect; most college campuses are.”
Landscape
architects are involved in multiple disciplines such as irrigation,
graphic design and engineering. Sean Rotar, an assistant professor of
landscape architecture, describes landscape architects as visionaries.
“The
landscape architect has the vision to bring economic development,
engineering, ecology and transportation services together and facilitate
a conversation between all of those groups,” said Rotar. “The State
Street project is organized by a landscape architect whose primary job
is to think about how people are going to use this and how this
experience is going to improve their daily lives.”
The most important lesson Jake Churchill, a junior in the
College of Agriculture, said he learned in landscape design is that
landscape designers are stewards of the land.
“We learned early to
design with nature and design to complement existing landscapes,” said
Churchill. “A good example is storm water management solutions. It rains
practically everywhere, but designing creative solutions to direct
water and keep it from flooding communities and homes is important. Our
design work is not only aesthetically pleasing, but also functional.”
As
the final project for their capstone course, senior landscape design
majors had to choose a problem and were challenged to create a
functional and aesthetically pleasing landscape to solve that problem.
Their work will debut at 5 p.m. on Thursday, May 5 at the West Lafayette
Public Library and will be free to the public all month long. This will
be the first time the seniors’ work will be shown to the public.
“We
want to make this a celebration and a public presentation of our work,”
said Rotar. “I have been really pleased with the depth of inquiry and
achievement that we’ve seen already with these projects. This group has
really tackled important issues.”
Landscape architecture plays a
huge role in everyday life, and the students in this discipline want
people to understand that it has been very beneficial to the environment
and to society as a whole.
“Designing is not just creating a
pretty picture, but instead it is developing spaces that should respect
the past, address issues of the present and promote growth in the
future,” said Jordan Pawlik, a junior in the College of Agriculture.
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