Recently, I have watched videos with Bjarke Ingels, Rem Koolhaus, Fabrio Novembre, Marc Newson, Michael Van Valkenburgh, Karl Lagerfeld and many others to gain more of an understanding of idea generation and design in various industries. What struck me during watching these videos is the willingness of society (and some designers) to accept mediocre design as something that will just occur as part of the marketplace and mainstream design realm. So why is it that we accept this mediocrity in the design profession and its not just architecture or industrial design but it seems that mediocrity is more and more prevalent in recent times in all design industries.
Does it necessarily need to be this way? Personally it seems that many have gone down the ‘path of least resistance’ and that the ‘market’ is influencing the way we design as a shift occurs towards developing markets and away from developed economies. Design standards seem to have been calibrated to the market and aiming at the lower level  to meet the standards of these immature developing markets with iteration after iteration of the same design to the point where is has become ubiquitous.  Where this can be seen more evidently is in the car industry where Porsche, Rolls Royce, BMW, Audi, Lamborghini, Bugatti have produced numerous ‘special editions’ and variations of the same model with very little design development for developing markets such as China.
The same is occurring in landscape architecture where the same design language and style is being used over and over again with little departure from the previous design. Some may see this as a firm/person developing a signature design language, I personally see it as lack of design energy and also a lack respect for the intellect of clients. Landscape architecture should respond to the culture, place, climate, terrain and numerous other elements that influence the design process to develop a unique concept that will create the best design for that site no matter how big or small. I understand that in China there is often little time to analyse, understand and design with the extraordinary short deadlines but I think we owe it the community, client and most of all ourselves as landscape architects to design something to the best of our design ability and to shun mediocrity.