Landscape Architect

Job overview
Landscape architects are concerned with the design, planning and management of the external environment.

What do people do in this job?
Landscape architects work on a great variety of projects, including environmental impact studies and the planning of townships and industrial and office parks, rehabilitation and land-use, recreation resorts and game parks and highways.

Landscape architects spend a great deal of time out of the office collecting information on the existing conditions of a site.

This could include climate, topography, hydrology, soils, vegetation, wildlife, archaeology and existing land-utilisation, and is normally undertaken in collaboration with specialists.

Landscape architects may be appointed as leaders of a design team or act as consultants to a town planner, engineer or architect.

What kinds of people are suitable for this career?
Landscape architects should be systematic, aesthetically creative, sensitive, good communicators and have an interest in the natural sciences.

What qualifications are needed?
A good all-round education, preferably with a BSc degree, but tertiary training on the graphic and plastic arts side could also be an advantage.