What Is Landscape Architecture?

Many times I have been asked what is the difference between a landscape architect and a landscape designer. Hopefully the following will answer this question.

The American Society of Landscape Architects, ASLA, provides the following:

"Landscape architecture encompasses the analysis, planning, design, management, and stewardship of the natural and built environments. Landscape architectural projects include design of public parks, site planning for commercial and residential properties, land reclamation, urban and community design, and historic preservation. Examples of landscape architecture include Central Park in New York City, TRW’s headquarters outside Cleveland, the “Emerald Necklace” of green spaces and parks in Boston, Sursum Cordan Affordable Housing in Washington, D.C., preservation of Yosemite Park and Niagara Falls, and the landfill reclamation of Fresh Kills in New York. Landscape architects have advanced education, professional training, specialized skills, and are licensed in 47 states."

What is the difference between a Landscape Designer and a Landscape Architect?

The national professional association is the American Society of Landscape Architects, based in Washington. ASLA full members have graduated from an accredited landscape architecture program, have 7 years of education and/or professional experience and are state licensed. In Michigan, as well as all other States, a three (3) day LARE examination administered by the Council of Landscape Architectural Registration Boards is required to be passed for state licensure.

Landscape designers do not have these professional credentials. Many state and local governments require designs to be stamped with a state registered Landscape Architect's seal.

What can I expect the landscape architectural design process to be?
Various architects may have different approaches, yet all are aimed at the same result. Make sure you're comfortable with the steps that the Landscape Architect defines. A typical process includes:

· Pre-planning - As the client, you discuss your desires with the architect and provide background, priorities, and any basic design guidelines. You'll work together and define the overall scope and timeline. The result will be a proposed budget and statement of work. The landscape architect will then prepare a contract for you to sign.

· Project Planning - Further preliminary details are developed with you about the site and its function and usage. The site is analyzed and the Landscape Architect creates a list of development priorities, which you'll approve.

· Preliminary Design - A review of the site, usage requirements, and environmental conditions are undertaken to create preliminary drawings. The Landscape Architect will show you design and presentation drawings showing the overall site concept. Initial construction cost estimates are provided, which you review and approve.

· Final design - Further detail is added to the concept. Material is selected and initial construction documentation is created. Where necessary, cost estimates are revised.

· Documentation - Additional detailed specifications and drawings are developed and provided to you for approval. The Landscape Architect may give you construction documents to assist you in soliciting bids from contractors and may help you review bids.

· Installation - Depending on your contract, the Landscape Architect may play an active role in representing you in your interaction with the contractor and provide on-site supervision. At the close of the project, the Landscape Architect will make a final inspection.

How do I find a good landscape contractor?

If you're going to need referrals to contractors and other service providers as part of your project, ask the Landscape Architect about these people. They will typically have an array of competent people in the industry for you to contact.

What's included in the landscape architecture contract?

Any reputable Landscape Architect will provide a written contract before beginning a project. This agreement will specify in detail the exact work to be done, the work schedule, the amount and payment terms of the landscape architect's fees, and the responsibilities of each party to the contract.

As a registered landscape architect in the State of Michigan and principle architect with Sexton Ennett Design, LC, a landscape architectural firm in southeast Michigan, I am particularly aware of the professional responsibilities related to landscape design. See : http://www.sexton-ennett.com

If there are nay questions please feel free to contact the ASLA or me.

Author Info:

Kimberley Ennett, MLA, ASLA: Kimberley Ennett has a Master Degree in Landscape Architecture from the University of Michigan and is a registered landscape architect in the State of Michigan. She is a principle landscape architect with Sexton Ennett Design, LC, a landscape architectural firm in Eastern Michigan. See: http://www.sexton-ennett.com Ms. Ennett is also a breeder of champion Oldenburg warmblood sporthorses. See: http://www.markimfarms.com

Source: http://www.articledepot.co.uk

Fengshui

A Feng Shui well-informed one was in former times always pulled before a building of houses in China to rate. Also today occurs this ever more frequently again. This Feng Shui man found the most favorable location as well as the optimal adjustment of the building. At this time the best use possibility was already specified for the room. With these measures one hoped to support the Feng Shui so that the fate for the family as positively as possible failed, both which the occupation, the family, which turned on health and the general private life. Therefore Feng Shui can be regarded as a branch of the Chinese medicine, as applied to architecture, interior decoration and landscape design.

There are in addition two fundamental traditional directions: the form school in such a way specified and the compass school. The form school developed in the hillier areas, where nature exhibits many different characteristics. Here the rules of the Yin and Yang as well as the five transformation phases and/or elements are used, on which the Feng Shui is based to a majority. This functions in the kind that a hill is compared with a pointed crest with the fire, because of the pointed form of a flame. A straight, long rock needle reminded of a staff is connected with the element wood. A Hochebene is flat like a brick, and therefore the earth is assigned, a hill with a round crest, reminded of a coin, speaks it symbolizes metal. In areas with many different forms close together one does not compare a firm form with water this possesses there. If someone intends to thus build in a valley, which has approximately pointed-jagged mountains, he should not build a timber building - and already no tower - for fire nourished by wood and that means increased fire risk for the entire building. A low rise building from stone against it would be rather by advantage the earth of the fire is fed there.

The second basic direction in the Feng Shui is oriented the compass school in such a way specified itself at the eight directions (the north, the east, the south, the west, northeast, northwest, southeast and southwest), which are divided however in three subsections each. Date of birth can be likewise important, because is the direction not to fit must in the case of doubt be searched so long to one a suitable house found in that the Feng Shui fits.

article source : http://www.article-free.net

Planning For Your Home Improvement

Home improvement involves a great deal of planning. There are many things one needs to prepare for like goals, a budget and a general outline of how you want things to look and work in the end. Whether it's an actual home improvement or a simple repair, planning ahead can save you a great deal of time, money and especially grief, in the end.

Goals
Having goals means a lot of things. In the case of home improvement, first, it's having a clear idea of what's wrong. Second, how you want something to look, and why. For example, are your eavestroughs forever getting clogged and rusting? Does the roof look a hundred years older than the house itself? Water damage finally showing up on the ceiling and/or walls after the last rain storm?

Once you've grasped the source of your angst, you can start thinking about what you want done about it. New eavestroughs or a roof? A new coat of paint? Different shelves? Brainstorming and imagination need only be dictated by function. For instance, the purpose of the eavestroughs. Alternatively, maybe it's not the eavestroughs but the dowspouts. Irrespective of your goals, this is also when you need to consider how much you can afford to spend comes into play.

A Budget
Establishing a realistic budget for any home improvement comes with an understanding what needs to be done. Naturally, it's important not to exceed what you can afford to do or have done. This is why shopping around for prices will give you a better understanding of what's possible within your given budget. In other words, it's time to do some homework.

Consequently, your home improvement budget may need to change to reflect your goals. Otherwise, a consideration of what less costly options are available will be necessary. Do you really need to hire someone to do your roof? Or is it a small enough job that you could do it yourself? Is it absolutely necessary to use a particular brand of material for your upgrade, when a less expensive, quality substitute exists? On the other hand, sometimes it's better to hire a professional. After all, the last thing you'd want to have happen is a home disaster that could be even more costly to fix. In other words, balance when and where you want to save that extra dollar.

An Outline For Action
If you've done your homework - shopping around for pricing - at this point, you should have gained some idea of how big - or small - your home improvement will be. Whether it will take anywhere from a few hours to a few weeks. In addition, you'll have discussed some of this if a contractor is to be involved.

This is when you need to set a course of action for yourself. What you want to achieve, under a particular budget, within a certain time frame. The bigger the project, the more critical this becomes. The reason being is that you may need to plan for any potential inconveniences that may occur along the way. No electricty for a day? Or do you simply need to get an old pair of clothes to work in for setting up a new downspout?

In the end, whatever you plan and however you plan to do it, it's always wise to plan ahead with your home improvement.

Article source : http://www.article-free.net/home-and-furniture

Postmodernism and Architecture

What is postmodernism? Are the postmodern characteristics still apparent in contemporary architectural design? According to scholars, "Postmodernism, by definition resists definition".

If postmodernism is then difficult to be defined, on what principles can one judge if postmodernism in architecture is in still emerging? Postmodernism in its regional/vernacular forms reflects neighborhood culture. Some argue that postmodernism is a reaction to the forces of "creative destruction." But it can be a tool for those powers as well. The end of the assembly line, created by the instant flexibility of computer technology, means that in this post-Fordist world people can all have a unique, neighborhood specific thing, as well as having the same reference.

Evaluating and categorizing architects according to styles, periods, theoretical backgrounds, and philosophical ideas, from Itkinos and Brunelleschi, to Borromini and Le Corbusier, is a very challenging process that requires a deep understanding of the key elements that influence the architects' design. What appears though to be a constant value in this type of analysis, is that the evolution of architecture, from the period of the Greek civilization (Parthenon in Athens 447-433 BC), to the present day's Santiago Calatrava's projects, signifies that the architect's pursuit for the myriad idea of beauty is actually a leitmotif of his/her past influences.

Postmodernism is differentiated from other cultural forms by its emphasis on fragmentation which replaces the alienation of the subject that characterized modernism. Postmodernism is concerned with all surface, no substance. There is a loss of the center. Postmodernist works are often characterized by a lack of depth; a flatness. Individuals are no longer anomic, because there is nothing from which one can sever ties. The liberation from the anxiety which characterized anomie may also mean liberation from every other kind of feeling as well. This is not to say that the cultural products of the postmodern era are utterly devoid of feeling, but rather that such feelings are now free-floating and impersonal. Also distinctive of the late capitalist age is postmodernism's focus on commodification and the recycling of old images and commodities.

In architecture, postmodernism, in its regional or vernacular forms, reflects neighborhood culture. In this way, it can function as a tool in class struggle and can probably be used by any player in the struggle. Thus, postmodernism when examined as a resistive force is closely linked to the historic preservationists. In trying to maintain the collective memory of a place the postmodernist agenda can be used in a way that is antithetical to the forces. Public or private partnerships that wipe out neighborhoods can use the postmodern vocabulary in their new ventures. Neighborhoods can hope to have at best just a mere palimpsest of a memory of what they were in the past.

One day perhaps, neuroscience will explain why some infrastructures seem to reach far beyond their physical dimensions. But one does not need to wait for that explanation in order to experience their postmodern or post-postmodern effect. It turns out that bodies, buildings, streets and cities are still useful for certain things in the global age of digital information. People are only beginning to uncover how they work.

Article Source: http://www.ArticlesAlley.com/