As green spaces and public areas increase in demand, more and more projects are being awarded to landscape architects rather than architects, some foresee a potential professional turf war.
"The recent surge in prestigious commissions going to and being completed by landscape architects has fuelled a fiery discourse over the ether as well as in academic circles as to what this means for the way cities will be made in the future. Traditionally, the architect was the master builder with landscape designers as mere ancillaries. Today that relationship is fast being reversed.
'Traditional roles have flipped," said architect Stephen Cassell of ARO, who believes landscape architects should have equal footing on design projects because of their specialized training. 'A lot of these landscape architecture firms have started to think about green spaces in a synthetic way. How landscape architects analyze a problem is very specific; it is about looking at experience within the city.'"
The element of usable landscape has grown in importance in a variety of high profile projects, pulling the formerly side-kicking field of landscape architecture into the spotlight.
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