Moreover, CHSLA is a very weak organization in China. Lots of people, but they have to listen to one leader who might be very very and very old. In China, they trust old people much more than young people. It is a shame and it is the main reason that Chinese LA put too much money and enegy on Chinese garden history study! It is very right to study history, but for a fast developing country, the real projects are waiting for qualified Landscape architects, not the history researchers. I have met the most powerful, old and have the leader of CHSLA and prepared to ask him some questions, but I was forced to stop doing it, because people think if my questions are just the ones he can not answer, he will feel embarrassing and therefore he will be angry. So, in China, even most of the LA teacher are not the ones you can disscuss with, but they are more like to be the BOSS! Students always have the same idea and always have to share their tutor’s interest very hard!

I came across a news today, which is about the golden metal winner from Greenwich University,the winner said: She said: “Without my training, and the support of my tutors, I could never have achieved so much. In fact, it was my tutor Tom who recognised my independent spirit when I was in my final year…. I learnt to question all assumptions and think outside the box, something my tutors always encouraged.”

I think that Chinese LA tutors really and really should learn how to teach this profession in China and learn from the tutors from Greenwich University! Education is the most important thing, because it is about people’s mind and spirit. Although I do not think Chinese LA tutors can change in a short time, I still look forward to seeing the change before I die!

I work for a Chinese LA company, but again, nobody here is qualified in LA. I am the only one, because I am the only foreigner.
I have had numerous discussions about this major problem, and everytime it comes back to what has been mentioned above, there isn’t a governing body for LA, you have to select one of the other choices. And then to become fully qualified it becomes near on ridiculous, because it isn’t even the LA qualification that you are seeking in the first place. So many of the Chiense do not even bother with becoming fully qualified in any respects often just going back to their hometowns because what they first dreamed just never happened, completely down to the lack of an institution in what they are dreaming of as a career. I have been in the company only 5 months and the constant changes in personal has now meant I am now the 9th longest member of the team.
It is a shame for both them and the country I feel.

Another problem is that of the obligation the developers have of building the buildings before handing the reigns over to a landscape designer, who then has to “make it pretty”. Nearly every project I have dealt with has came with tower blocks put in silly places that we cannot even suggest to move slightly because the architects overule without any consideration to beyond the buildings themselves. Simply because it has not been discussed with a landscape architect prior to the green lights going on for construction.
I could go on for ages now actually, but I have work to do so will stop, somebody has to to think about exterior spaces eh.

p.s – I fully agree with Toms last note, but I fear in China it currently means not much more than putting ribbons on the toys that somebody else has already made. Not the correct role of LA, but more of a constant chase to try and cover up the past and current mistakes of the chinese development industry. Just this week I finished a conceptual design for a green space adjacent to a residential area. A few days before submission I was informed there was now to be a lighthouse smack bang in the middle of it. This destroyed the project, the design, the conception and ultimately left a flawed final product for both me, my company, the developers themselves, and most importantly the Chinese residents who have to use these spaces.

(1)CSLA is the Chinese LA organisation, as we all knew that, but the focus of the topic was on how it should work better and how it will work better (ie,if they think more about the structure of education and about landscape architects’ qualifications).

(2)I do not think Tom “objects” to a link with forestry…His meaning is to give a CLEAR idea about what is the real job of the landscape architecture profession in China.This job is totaly different from forestry. Forestry was by Chinese people earlier than landscape architecture. That is why Tom wants to think of landscape architecure independently from other subjects. I think it is necessary and good. Because the meaning of landscape architecutre has been misunderstood for ages in China, even now there is not a fixed meaning.

Anyway, thank and welcome all comments, which is all care about LA.

Robert Holden