Employing landscape architects: advice for clients

Landscape architects are highly qualified professionals, like lawyers, architects and doctors. Some are generalists and some are specialists; some are more interested in the appearance of places and some in their functional characteristics. It is important for clients to find out about a landscape architect's expertise but they should not fall into the Catch 22 mistake of thinking that people can only do what they have done before. They should listen to what they say in addition to discovering what they have done before.

Payment for landscape architecture services

Landscape architects can be paid

• on an hourly basis
• on a fee bid basis
• as a percentage of the cost of a construction contract

Finding a landscape architect

There are many approaches

• Lists can be obtained from professional landscape architecture organizations (ASLA in the US, LI in the UK, etc)
• A web search will bring up the websites of local firms
• Books and journals will illustrate the work of well-known firms

An ideas competition can form an excellent starting point for a large project:

• the competition should be advertised
• a limited number of firms should be chosen (eg 3-7)
• each firm should be paid a fixed sum for submitting a small number of plans and drawings
• several firms should be interviewed