Reframing Landscape Architecture

This multi-year engagement generated research-backed strategies communicators can use to overcome core misunderstandings people have about landscape architecture.

Public awareness about landscape architecture is a long-standing challenge. The lack of familiarity or only surface-level perception limits society’s utilization of landscape architects and their expertise. Increasing public understanding of the discipline and its value is critical to all aspects of the field, from recruitment and university program budgets to licensure and the scope of professional services to advocacy and influence. 

In 2018, a group of the heads of key capacity organizations for landscape architecture – ASLA, CLARB, LAAB, LAF, and CELA – engaged the FrameWorks Institute in a three-phase applied communications research and knowledge translation process to uncover the most effective ways of communicating about landscape architecture. 

Using their multi-method Strategic Frame Analysis® approach, FrameWorks’ staff of PhD-level sociologists, psychologists, and linguists identifies widely held assumptions and mental shortcuts that people use to make sense of an issue. They then empirically test ways of communicating that “reframe” the issue by building from the pre-held assumptions to activate more productive ways of thinking and overcome core misunderstandings. 

The findings can be summarized in four key framing strategies:

1. Paint a vivid picture of how landscape architecture directly benefits people and communities.
2. Appeal to the value of community cohesion to reinforce the value of the field.
3. Explain how landscape architects use their expertise in design to build a better world.
4. Offer strategic examples of your work.

Additional resources and trainings will be forthcoming to help the landscape architecture community get “on frame” to effectively communicate about the discipline and build a bigger constituency for its role.