LAF Olmsted Scholars: Ready to Act on the New Landscape Declaration, Part 3
Inspired by LAF’s 2016 Summit on Landscape Architecture and the Future and the New Landscape Declaration, a group of ten Olmsted Scholars developed their own response focused on moving forward with deliberate actions to meet the ambitions set forth in the Declaration’s four calls to action.
Through a series of blog posts, we are showcasing their action plans. We recently introduced Action 1 and Action 2, and this week we present Action 3:
We will work to raise awareness of landscape architecture's vital contribution.
ACT NOW
- Use clear, relatable language in public presentations. Do not use jargon.
- Foster citizen urbanists and community partners.
- Promote the profession via social media.
- Educate the public on the benefits of working with landscape architects.
- Evaluate current communication strategies and explore non-traditional and contemporary communication methods.
PLAN NOW
- Partner with branding/marketing professionals to create a campaign to position the landscape architectural design process as relatable and relevant to the public.
- Increase opportunities for idea competitions or conferences that foreground multi-functional, “artful and performative” landscapes to stimulate fresh solutions to local and global issues and gain visibility for the profession.
- Seek short-term and alternative projects for their ability to catalyze public conversation, stimulate new ideas and teach the profession how to fail forward.
You can download a PDF copy of the full The Olmsted Scholar Agenda: from Declaration to Action, which includes all four action plans and corresponding precedents for reference and inspiration. The document is a framework for a more detailed action strategy that can be used to inspire, direct, and hold us all accountable. It is not intended to be comprehensive, but rather to be the beginning of a larger dialogue to address the concerns and hopes stated in the New Landscape Declaration.
Stay tuned later this month for our final post in this series on Action 4: “We will work to support research and champion new practices that result in design innovation and policy transformation.”
