Expanding the Landscape:
- Eric McQuiston, PLA
- 2 days ago
- 5 min read
How Landscape Architects Can Elevate Their Value and Create More Opportunity
For all the artistry, ecological understanding, and technical coordination that go into our work, landscape architecture remains one of the most misunderstood professions in the United States. Too often, the public sees us as decorators of the outdoors, designers of gardens and parks, rather than as essential contributors to the systems that make communities livable, sustainable, and economically resilient.
The truth is that landscape architects sit at the intersection of design, ecology, policy, and construction. We are uniquely positioned to balance environmental performance with human experience. The question is not whether the profession has value. It is whether we are doing enough to communicate and demonstrate it.
In today’s design economy, perception creates opportunity. When our value is clearly seen, work follows.
Communicate Outcomes, Not Just Aesthetics
One of the simplest ways to elevate our perceived value is to change the conversation. Instead of leading with beauty, we should lead with impact.
Our designs increase property values, reduce stormwater management costs, improve air quality, and enhance both mental and physical health. They support biodiversity and strengthen local economies. These are measurable benefits that connect directly to the concerns of developers, municipalities, and homeowners.
By framing design decisions in terms of quantifiable outcomes such as energy savings, water retention, carbon capture, and maintenance reduction, we help clients understand that landscape architecture is not a luxury. It is infrastructure.
Step Into Leadership, Not Just Collaboration
For decades, landscape architects have worked as part of multidisciplinary teams, often under the direction of architects or engineers. Collaboration remains essential, but it is time to lead from the front.
We can and should serve as prime consultants on projects where the land itself drives the concept, including parks, campuses, waterfronts, planned communities, and environmentally sensitive developments.
Leadership begins with confidence in our scope. It grows when we are seen not only as designers but as project strategists, site planners, and environmental problem solvers.
Present at conferences outside our discipline. Publish in business journals and community development outlets. Participate in planning boards, city councils, and real estate forums. The more visible our influence becomes, the more the profession grows in stature and opportunity.
Enter Policy, Law, and Public Service
The built environment does not begin with a sketch. It begins with policy. Landscape architects who engage in land use codes, zoning reform, and environmental regulations shape the rules that determine what can and cannot be built.
Participation in local government boards, planning commissions, and environmental review panels brings visibility and credibility. It also opens consulting avenues such as assisting municipalities in drafting tree ordinances, subdivision codes, and green infrastructure standards.
When landscape architects are written into policy, we are written into budgets.
Lead in Sustainability and Resilience
No other design profession bridges the natural and built environments as ours does. The most pressing challenges of our time, including flooding, urban heat, water scarcity, and habitat loss, are fundamentally landscape problems.
By embracing tools such as SITES certification, performance-based design, and adaptive management plans, we can measure how our work improves environmental function. This moves us beyond artistic merit into the realm of measurable necessity.
When decision-makers understand that landscape architects make infrastructure work better; economically, ecologically, and socially, they call us sooner and compensate us more fairly.
Bridge Design and Implementation
Design excellence alone does not guarantee opportunity. The key lies in delivery.
By engaging more closely with contractors and developers, we can position ourselves as partners rather than vendors. Design-build relationships allow us to demonstrate that good design is efficient, constructible, and profitable.
Providing clear documentation, flexible detailing, and post-construction follow-up demonstrates responsibility beyond design. The result is trust, and trust leads to repeat work.
Diversify and Broaden the Field
One of the most powerful ways to create opportunity is to expand what landscape architecture includes.
We can:
Offer consulting and project management alongside design.
Provide post-occupancy evaluations, performance monitoring, and adaptive maintenance plans.
Develop visual storytelling for clients through animations, three-dimensional visualizations, and branding or interpretive graphics that communicate the identity of a place.
These services differentiate us from other consultants and create recurring revenue.
Entering adjacent markets such as infrastructure, restoration, healthcare, education, real estate, and tourism exposes us to new funding sources and client types. Wherever people, land, and infrastructure meet, there is a place for a landscape architect.
Think Like an Entrepreneur
Every design firm, regardless of size, is a business. To grow opportunities, we must think like businesspeople as well as designers.
That means learning to express value in return-on-investment terms such as reduced maintenance, improved efficiency, and higher occupancy rates.It means building strategic partnerships with engineers, architects, and contractors to multiply exposure.It also means creating intellectual property—books, training programs, or digital tools—that extends our influence beyond billable hours.
Entrepreneurship is not about leaving design behind. It is about giving it room to grow.
Leverage Technology
Technology has become one of the strongest tools for professional expansion.Landscape architects can use GIS, drones, artificial intelligence, and environmental modeling to analyze land performance, visualize outcomes, and predict costs. Clients value these tools because they clarify decision-making and demonstrate accountability.
A strong online presence matters as well.Sharing work, writing thoughtful articles, and maintaining a consistent digital identity build trust and attract new clients. In many ways, our next opportunity may come not from referral but from a story well told online.
Advocate, Mentor, and Lead Publicly
Service and mentorship reinforce our role as stewards of both profession and community.Teaching, volunteering, and mentoring younger designers or contractors create networks that often lead to collaboration in the future.
Serving on boards, speaking publicly, and writing about what we do demystifies our work for the public and helps future generations see landscape architecture as a calling with purpose.
Define Your Niche, But Stay Adaptable
Specialization builds authority, while adaptability ensures longevity.Whether it is waterfront design, eco-tourism, campus planning, or residential consulting, a clear niche makes marketing easier. Staying open to new project types keeps opportunity alive.
The Path Forward
The profession’s future depends not only on what we do but on how we present what we do.When we frame our work as the connection between environment, economy, and community, we elevate its value in the eyes of clients, governments, and the public.
When we educate, lead, and communicate with clarity, opportunity follows.
Landscape architecture is not a support act. It is a discipline of synthesis, where design meets ecology, where planning meets people, and where vision becomes reality.
The more we step into that truth, the more the world will realize that it cannot build without us.
~Eric
By Eric R. McQuiston, PLALandscape Architect | Environmental Consultant
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