Career Spotlight: What I Do As A Landscape Architect

If good design is invisible, then you might not notice the intentional choices that go into designing a landscape. Its the work of a landscape architect to subtly guide you through a physical space and shape how you interact with it, and its a bit more than just choosing the potted plants.

To learn more about the work of a landscape architect, we spoke with Bret Hanson, who has worked for a variety of firms on projects ranging from public infrastructure to landscapes with Walt Disney Imagineering, and now is working in sustainable urban design with LPA Inc.

Pictured above: Plan for West Hollywood Park, image by LPA Inc.

Howdy! My name is Bret Hanson and I am a licensed landscape architect, which gives me the awesome authority to legally call myself a landscape architect, sign documents into construction, and explain to people I do more than residential. Currently I work for multi-disciplinary design firm, LPA Inc., in our Orange County office, specifically our Urban Design Studio. I have 10ish years of experience (straight outta Kansas) having worked at (four) very different companies and covered probably every market segment imaginable. Currently, my portfolio in LPAs Urban Design Studio focuses on civic, health care, life science, and various targeted developer work.

I was born, raised, schooled, and corn bread fed in Kansas. My mums side of the family were people of the soil, before, during, and after the depression. I spent a lot of my youth on our grandparents farm hunting, fishing, camping, hay bailing, off-roading, cow-tipping, and adventuring throughout the rural surroundings. One of my dads passions is sailing (yes, we actually have lakes in Kansas) so we also spent a lot of weekends on the water. Additionally, my mum has a background in textiles and my dad is a professional guitarist so I like to think some creativity inherently runs through these country veins.

As a kid my toy arsenal included LEGO, Lincoln Logs, G.I. Joes, He-Man, etc. From these tools many elaborate structures and forts were built with epic battles ensuing. This evolved during high school by me delving into architecture classes, even though I had the drawing skills of a two year old. I originally attended college to pursue architecture but switched to landscape architecture because I thought it offered more variety and was more encompassing. The biological nature of a landscape being alive was, and still is, poetic to me. These traits and experiences helped guide where I landed today, and planted the seed for my love and respect for working with our exterior environment.

I was born a surfer in a Kansans body, so after graduating with a Bachelors of Landscape Architecture from Kansas State University, it was California or bust. KSUs program offers a semester long study abroad or internship program. I decided to intern abroad in California and snagged a couple of great internships in Orange County, which led to a permanent position after graduation. The steps to becoming a professional landscape architect are similar to architecture.

The internet memes usually portray landscape architects as either mowing lawns or sitting behind a desk clicking CAD all day. Part of this is true and you can definitely get pigeon-holed. In reality, no matter the discipline (landscape architect, architect, engineer, etc), our profession is extremely expansive. We are not only designers but planners, innovators, communicators, writers, coordinators, managers, marketers, green building leaders, and more. Landscape architects not only need to know about plants but also paving, walls, fence, rails, concrete, wood, metal, furniture, lighting, water features, irrigation, water management, and sustainability. Additionally, we must understand the construction of each piece and how they all stitch together cohesively within the overall site and ecological cycle. We do not just draw beautiful lines those lines must be approved by agencies, to code, within budget, buildable by contractors, and hopefully sustainable. As Ned Stark once quipped, One does not simply draw a paving joint.

Additionally projects have multiple phases and each phase has different players clients, multiple disciplines, consultants, product vendors, cities, agencies and contractors. This makes coordination and communication two of the most important skills within our profession as they are continuous throughout project life. An over simplified project phasing would be Conceptual Design, Construction Documentation (drawing and writing how project is built, agency approvals, bidding), and Construction.

Personally my current week is roughly 25% coordination (email, phone calls, meetings, submittals), 30% documentation and design (sketches, exhibits, CAD, Adobe, Bluebeam), 20% construction administration (field review, submittals, RFI, putting out fires), 20% management (project tracking, scheduling, reviewing plans), 5% miscellaneous (internal operations, marketing, recruitment, etc).

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Career Spotlight: What I Do As A Landscape Architect