Drawing near to the end of the year, and amidst the chaos of university work, I keep thinking about the job scene. There are so many advertisments for Landscape Architects in Vista, Landscape and on the Web, and I find myself looking at each of them and considering what it is about them that would attract me to work for them. What kind of work are they producing? Not just in terms of quantity and quality, but also their focus on issues such as sustainability and their approach to landscape. What is the common denominator in their project profile? How would I characterise their style of design, and is their style one which I identify with? Could I see myself sitting behind a desk in their office (location!), and working on their schemes?
I guess that having worked for three years in practice whilst doing my course, I feel more strongly than some, that I would really like to run my own practice one day. I certainly came in at the beginning of this course thinking that I never would, but somehow, I really see that side of the coin too now. It would be so easy to work for a company and enjoy the benefits of set hours, good pay and a wide range of projects boulstered by a large and important clientel, and so difficult to spend so many hours working on the paperwork and admin that self employment would, for many years, supply me. But then the attraction of it has to be that your work is no longer subject to drastic and often detremental changes behind your back. And you would be secure in the knowledge that the integrity of your interventions would remain.
Still, after all that, I know that for many years I will work for a company, where I will get the opportunity to learn from the mistakes of my peers and form a more solid basis for my own work. But that brings me back to choices of placement. Whilst I gain this precious experience, I don't want to become stiffled in my own aspirations, having thoughts and dreams of excellence shoved aside. And so it must be crucial to pick a practice that I know will nurture these ideals and allow them to flourish.
Reading through the practice profiles on the Landscape Institute's website was no help whatsoever, as the most unimaginative bunch must have written them, or perhaps they employed the same person to write them all! Certainly it wouldn't read very differently if they had been cut and pasted five hundred times. I only really began to get a good impression of practices when I looked at their websites.
I know that I made a beeline to look at practices with an imaginative title, and good website design helped to boost this further. But actualy looking at their work is what really keys me in.
I am happy working on a vast range of subjects both hard and soft, and being environmentaly minded is a big plus for me, but none of these arenas should have to sacrifice style, imagination and ingenuity. I want to work for a company that is strong enough in itself, to not be pushed around by the architects, but to be treated as equals and receive fair budgeting and have it's choices respected. I want to work for someone who rewards creativity, and has big hopes for their employee's prospects, not just the company's. And I want to work in an environment which aids spontaneous thinking and frees the mind to recreate the paper. And above all, I don't want to feel as if I'm going to work, and end up dreading it after a year.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/simplearts/605426302/
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