Professional Practice
Public Practice: Engagement
Public Practice Landscape Architecture: Engagement
Engagement is the tool utilized to effectively listen to and receive input from community members, stakeholders, political bodies, and interest groups regarding amenities and improvements for spaces that are built, managed, and/or maintained by public agencies. The public practice landscape architect has the responsibility and authority to represent the agency and to effectively align the feedback with the project goals. Examples of engagement include:
- Formal community meetings, whether in person or online
- Outreach through surveys and questionnaires
- Attendance at community events and stakeholder meetings
- Inter-agency coordination
- Private development coordination
- Social media posts
- Dedicated websites
The role of the public practice landscape architect is one of facilitator, collaborator, and participant and data collector. As the face of the public agency or the project, the responsibilities and results of engagement includes the following:
- Invite engagement through the use of community-led planning.
- Utilize feedback for informing and impacting policies related to environmental, social, and economic values.
- Strengthen inter-organizational relationships with open communication and inclusivity. Good relationships help to avoid duplicity in project planning.
- Provide information/feedback updates to political bodies as justification for project’s, long term investments, and the value of assets to the public, i.e. value of mature trees, value of open park.
- Engage with those who program the sites being designed. The dialogue and interaction with the programming staff is imperative during design to gain a better understanding of how the site will operate upon completion. Programming staff should be involved during the course of the project.
- Seek out external stakeholders that are located within the general vicinity of the project, or those that could be impacted by the project.
“I have consistently used community engagement to teach students various ways to work with communities in response to requests that come into our Landscape Architecture Program. Each year the program organizes two or three design studio projects that help individual communities envision new futures for their shared property. It’s amazing how the students can generate excitement of possibilities that community members had not thought possible or even thought of.”
– Terry Clements, FASLA, Professor and Program Chair of the Virginia Tech Landscape Architecture Program
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