What you can do in 2019 to improve the profile of landscape architecture

Following up from my 2018 article How can we better promote landscape architecture? this post provides some simple ways for landscape architects can raise the profile of the profession over the coming year.

Share, Like and Follow
One of the easiest ways is to share what we do as landscape architects every day with your friends, family and the whole world through social media. It is as simple as posting photos of your work (sketches, site visits, built work) on your preferred social media platform whether that is Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, WhatsApp or Wechat group, Snapchat, Pinterest. Showing what we do increases awareness and profile of the profession. Also remember to share other peoples posts including your employer, landscape architecture organisations and publication posts to give them some social media love.

Another way to is to like and follow/subscribe other landscape architects, and organisations as what you like and follow will sometimes show up in your followers feeds (depending on the platform) exposing them to landscape architecture.

Publish
Publishing is celebrating your work and provide insights for others to landscape architecture. Publishing can be time-consuming but it does have its rewards through recognition by your fellow landscape architects but also your clients, consultants, and collaborators. Whether you publish on your own company website or local newspaper or industry magazine or blog any publication is another step to raising the profile of landscape architecture.

Publishing doesn’t always have to be a conceptual or built work, it can be sharing knowledge with others about your process and what you learned.

Travel and tag
When landscape architects travel we often take hundreds of pictures (driving our fellow travelers crazy with taking another photo of a great detail) but we often forget to post photos. You can still publish these photos on social media (as well as flickr and 500px) and tag with the place and #landscapearchitecture to improve the profile of the profession.

Career/Field Days
The profession is always looking for new people and the best way to inspire new talent is to attend career and field days to provide insights into landscape architecture and what you do. Students can learn from professionals young and old about the profession.

Teaching
Teaching is a great way to inspire and be inspired by other people who are just learning or about to complete their course. Teaching by sharing your experiences and talents allows students to understand more about landscape architecture.

Teaching can sound daunting but it doesn’t have to be a whole semester at your local university or college, you can guest lecture in landscape architecture, architecture, horticulture, urban design, civil engineering to share your knowlegdge.

Advocate
You should ask your local landscape organisation (ASLA, AILA, SILA, NZILA, ILAA, etc) what they are doing to advocate on behalf of the profession and how you can help. Some organisations have an annual advocacy day which you can attend. You can always advocate by writing to your local newspaper, city, government about an issue as a landscape architect.

Also ask for recognition from your allied professionals by including you as the landscape architect when they are publishing a project.

Support
Support your local landscape organisations and landscape architecture publications such as WLA to ensure that provide landscape architects with a resource and platform to promote the profession.

These are just a few actions you can take throughout 2019 and beyond to help increase the profile of landscape architecture.

Article Written by Damian Holmes is the Founder and Editor of WLA.
He is also a registered Landscape Architect and has extensive experience as a landscape architect in Australia, Canada, and China. 

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