Not every project is a landmark competition winning project

Recently, I have been surveying World Landscape Architecture readers for their feedback on the design, content and user experience. I looked at some of the responses today and overall the feedback was good with some great insights on how to improve WLA. However, I think there are a couple of readers who miss the point […]

Why do we accept mediocrity in landscape architecture?

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 […]

What’s in a name? Companies that use country of origin to become ‘international’

There is a growing number of landscape firms in China, some are foreign, some local and many a mix (often referred to as sino-american or sino-australia, etc). The company names are interesting to read some a very simple and aimed at a certain market, others keep their name from abroad or just create a literal […]

Chinese New Year Holiday Period and construction stops

Currently its leading up to the Chinese New Year holiday period with people heading home for celebrations with family. Building and landscape construction has stopped on many sites, most of the projects I have been working on had a rush until Wednesday (11 January) and now they are ghost sites with not a soul to […]

Sustainable Landscape Architecture Part 4: Can standards and certification create sustainable landscapes?

At last I got round to finishing my blog posts – Part 4 and 5 of Sustainable Landscape Architecture Series. Although I believe that standards such Sustainable Sites and certification such as LEED AP can contribute to advancing landscape architecture and creating sustainable landscapes they also become a crutch that we point to and say […]