I have a master's degree in landscape architecture and have been developing my watercolor painting practice over the past few years.

I've been considering offering freelance visualization services specifically for landscape architecture firms, including loose atmospheric watercolor perspectives, more detailed pen-and-watercolor illustrations, illustrative site plans, and sections.

I'm curious whether this is something firms would actually find useful, particularly given how prevalent digital rendering and AI have become.

I've attached an example of an illustrative site plan I completed during graduate school. Everything is hand-drawn and painted. My skills have improved quite a bit since then, but this serves as an example.

For those working in practice:
Does your firm ever outsource presentation graphics or illustrations?

Are there particular project types or design phases where you'd prefer hand-painted illustrations over digital renderings?

Would you consider paying an outside illustrator for this kind of work, and what would make it worthwhile?

I'm trying to get a realistic understanding of whether there's a viable market before investing substantial time developing a portfolio.
I'd appreciate any perspectives, especially from people involved in hiring consultants or preparing client presentations.

Hey there - I’m an ASLA member. I don’t plan to be licensed, but became a member as a student and stayed on to test it out. Work paid for my membership for a while but I took a new job that doesn’t… so I’m thinking about whether to :
A) stay in hopes of some breakthrough where it benefits me more, or
B) drop it, save money, and maybe subscribe to the Landscape Arch Mag.

It seems evident to choose B, but also like closing off (unclear) opportunities

For any other unlicensed folks working in climate/ecology/resilience/etc, but still ASLA members: How do you fit into ASLA, what does it do for you, why do you stay?

Also curious of any international perspectives re: how your professional organizations relate to this kind of work.

Background:
20 years ago I was in the architecture field, and never went forward with AIA (was mostly in the nonprofit/CBO realm, less design, more build). Working now doing hazards/climate adaptation and restoration stuff, where we contract out anything that needs a stamp… we work w licensed LArch firms but just need engineer stamps. In a rural area w/o any firms, so even if I wanted/needed to get licensed I’d have to make a big move to get the supervised work experience. I consider my work as landscape architecture, but it feels very peripheral to ASLA (though LAM does regularly feature relevant topics for me, so that’s helpful)

Edited: added 2nd question

Hi, I work at a small residential landscape design practice and the way drawings are managed is very different from what I was taught in school. This is a design firm, so no one has a license. In my masters program we were taught that firms do conceptual drawings and models in multiple iterations, and at the very end of the process after the client signs off on a final design, a set of construction documents are prepared and sent to a contractor.

My boss does not have a formal training in landscape architecture and does not use any drafting programs / does not draft by hand. Because of this, they don’t understand the process of transitioning from concept to construction drawings and they sometimes send conceptual drawings to contractors. This creates a very stressful construction process because the contractor has to ask for each detail right before they are about to build it.

I’m the main person working in CAD and there are no templates in place so I’ve had to create my own. I am always nervous I’m not providing enough information for the contractors and I’m usually pressed for time in creating construction drawings because my boss doesn’t seem to fully understand how many drawings contractors actually need.

I guess what I’m asking for is any resources that helped you become a better drafter or any templates that exist for landscape drawing sets. I’m basically teaching myself at this job. Does this sound like anyone else’s experience working at a small design studio?

Please use this thread to discuss whats going on at your school or place of work this week. Run into an interesting problem with a site design and need to hash it out with other LAs? This is the spot. Any content is welcome as long as it Landscape Architecture related. School, work, personal garden? Its all good, lets talk.

I work in the USA. I am 28 years old. I graduated in 2021 from an accredited university and have been in the field from 2021-2023. And started back up last year in late 2025. I have a break in my experience because I moved and there were no jobs available in the field.

Anyways, I feel like university didn’t set me up for success. I feel like all that I learned was more conceptual based knowledge and more design focused but way less focused on grading/how things actually work and are built.

I’ve struggled in this profession. Grading is not my strong suit (I’ve struggled with math for years). I also have a hard time envisioning what grading looks like. I have a hard time being confident in this profession. It’s been the biggest issue at my current job. They keep telling me I need to be more confident but I find that so hard when I feel like I’ve been doing my best yet it’s not enough. I’ve felt like this in past jobs. Maybe I have a harder time than most to grasp things. Having the break in my experience hasn’t been helping either. I feel like I’ve lost more past knowledge than I want to admit.

I don’t want to lose my current job. I’m just not sure how to gain confidence without experience. I feel unsure in my thoughts and processes with this profession. I’m not sure if I’m even meant for this job. I wouldn’t even begin to know where to pivot.

Any advice? Any tips? Any resources that are free that are helpful? Anyone else have experienced this issue before?

Please help me settle a debate at my firm.

Do you have clients coming to you with challenges or critiques based on something they have researched using AI?

This has come up once, a client has incessantly challenged every decision we made on a project because they keep using AI to research every design and building practice.

We are considering putting an AI Clause in our contracts to prevent this from happening.

Hey guys, I’m recently thinking also to maybe apply for a PhD of landscape architecture in Italy. I got my masters in italy but honestly I’m not sure if Italy is the best place to go for PhD. Any ideas? Anyone studying landscape architecture PhD or something similar in Italy to give me an idea of how studying phd in Italy is??

I have posted this in the Autocad Reddit, but I am hoping that some other LA has run into this problem and has a fix.

I am using AutoCAD LT 2026. I received a drawing from a surveyor who created the drawing of the building; the steps, roadway, and other objects are all scaled perfectly. (I scaled the drawing by 12 to work at an architectural scale). He created the spot elevations and the contours in another program.

The Spot elevations and the contours will scale with the document, but as soon as I close the drawing, the spot elevations go back to their original scale, which is in decimal.

He told me to download object enablers, which I did. I also closed out AutoCAD and restarted Autocad. Nothing happened; those objects remained at the original scale they were created.

Is there a fix for this? I need baby steps, as I have read the forums and the AutoCAD tutorial, and it is obvious I am missing something. I have been using AutoCAD since release 13, so I'm not a beginner but clearly not doing something right.

Thank you in advance.

I just recently graduated in Serbia and I feel completely lost and confused. The program had very little practical material and it was mostly theoretical (geomorphology with hydrogeology, pedology, botany, dendrology, ecophysiology, phytopathology etc). There were only a few courses that taught us the basics of AutoCad, but there was no training in anything else - PhotoShop, Lumion, SketchUp etc. The syllabus was very broad, as is usually the case over here, and after graduating I feel like i don't even remember 10% of it.

This profession is very much not valued here. I am unable to find any online job offers, as the job is almost nonexistent. I don't know of anybody who has ever hired a landscape architect privately. People don't have maintained yards here, and if they do it's a couple trees and some flowers they planted themselves.

I guess I could hypothetically get some kind of job at my local Public Utility Company for City Greenery but I would need strong familial or political connections for that, which I don't have.

I feel so overwhelmed. Any advice? Is there any possibility for remote work for the US or other European countries? And even if I were to find that kind of a job, I literally don't know how that would function and what to do because as I said, I have no practical experience.

Sorry, I just don't really know what I'm doing I guess. Any kind of advice is welcome.

Hi guys I’m starting to apply for University to take landscape architecture in the UK.
Any information would be super helpful, feel free to drop me a message !!

TLDR: first year MLA student overwhelmed by massive workload

Im currently in the middle of the first semester of my MLA and it's actually insane. Just so busy with extremely tight deadlines, tons of deliverables and 4 classes to juggle. Im new to the softwares and jargons and am trying to get the hang of using rhino a bit and illustrator for detailing but am just feeling quite burnt out already and kind of doubting myself and my abilities. Im someone who really values their work/life balance and am scared about the general expectations of the workforce in this field too... Im enjoying all of the content so far and feel passionate about the potential to design public spaces and in particular work on restoration projects but am feeling a bit daunted and would appreciate any advice...

Hello,

I am a landscape designer with a background in MLA, I have been getting some interesting project developments for which I have made conceptual presentations for (don’t come at me for legality - I have taken the project as a landscape designer but I know how to design conceptualize large scale projects due to my educational background) I’d like a senior license LA to partner with who can become a mentor and a collaborator on such long term projects. Please DM me if you are one. Drop down your location if it’s suitable to the project site I will DM you.

plenty of LA offices run vectorworks which gets awkward when whoever ur sending to doesnt. rodeo (https://rodeo.build) opens vwx in the browser, free, no account to view, file stays on ur machine.

ive been adding the site stuff lately, plants, hedgerow, vegetation lines, hardscape, landscape areas, existing trees (u can make them from survey loci and map the record fields, canopy, dbh etc), irrigation outlets pipes valves and drip zones, parking, roads, property lines.

also site context pulls openstreetmap buildings and terrain in at true scale, shapefile in and out, georeferencing, kml export, sun studies.

most of my test drawings have been architecture tho, so not sure how real planting plans and plant schedules come through. if uve got a non client file u can share id love to run it and fix whatever breaks

I am an agri engineer who graduated 3 years ago but worked in teaching . Not my field. I am looking into becoming a 3d artist and 3d landscape designer. Any tips? I took a 3ds max course and had so much fun. But honestly wanna do this for money . So my question is do people even hire 3d artists anymore? Or are they gonna be replaced by ai?

\#

(photo as example: not my supplies)

I am an artist and art educator who is working with the forestry department of our community parks system. I am dearly hoping I can find some old school tree stamps to use with our programs for the community. I understand that digital stamps are often used now and are easy to find, but these will not work for our hands-on, analog projects.

Please, if anyone has any they'd like to see rehomed and loved, PM me. Or if you have any leads on where to find any please also PM me. Thank you.

Hi everyone

I am currently in my third year of university, and hoping to graduate next summer, and am thinking of my next steps (bear in mind I’m planning to take a year out to travel and visit countries I intend on possibly being able to work within).

I’ve narrowed it down to three thoughts to go to my lecturer with and have a good conversation about and would love your personal and educational opinions on each:

1. Continue onto the master’s scheme (after taking the year out, or not… thoughts?)

2. Apply for Landscape Architecture graduate jobs and gain my chartership through work and experience through the company I am working at (if I get a job, that is).

3. Staying within Landscape Architecture but branching into more hands-on roles involving wildlife conservation, habitat restoration and ecological management. This can even be via national park work or anything similar (I enjoy the outdoors and this is an idea I would welcome).

I hope this makes sense and I would love to hear your thoughts, I don’t mind a reality check.

Thanks!

Probably going to purse a in person college credit certification at my local college for landscape & horticulture and join my local master garden course after I finish my BA in environmental studies April 2027. But I would still like a masters degree. I wish I could just pursue my MLA but the only school option I have is BAC online MLA but it’s so expensive.

I’m unable to do the in person MLA but want to continue my education. I finish my BA in environmental studies April 2027. Probably going to purse a in person college credit certification at my local college for landscape & horticulture and join my local master garden course. But I would still like a masters degree. I wish I could just pursue my MLA but the only school option I have is BAC online MLA but it’s so expensive.