Membership Matters

Landscape architecture is gaining ground. ASLA is the engine behind that progress—protecting your license, proving your value to clients, and making sure your voice is heard where it counts.

This is the real-world list of the results that your membership makes possible.

How the profession’s latest wins are creating more leverage, visibility, and opportunity for your work.

Latest Gains

Your license is your most powerful asset—and advocacy keeps it that way

Most landscape architects don't spend much time thinking about licensing laws until they are under threat. But the legal right to practice is a boundary that requires constant maintenance. This year, that boundary was tested and held in two very different states through coordinated advocacy.

In Alaska, the state licensing board—the very foundation for your credentials and reciprocity—faced a scheduled "sunset" that could have disrupted your ability to practice. In Hawaiʻi, outdated statutes had fallen out of step with the technical and cultural complexities of the islands. To protect the profession, the Alaska and Hawaiʻi Chapters joined forces with ASLA National to engage lawmakers and make the case for professional standards.

The results were decisive. Alaska reauthorized its licensing board, securing professional continuity for years to come. Hawaiʻi signed into law a modernized framework that validates specialized local expertise through a state-specific exam. In both cases, the risk of a regulatory gap was replaced by the security of a stronger, more resilient license.

The result

Your license is backed by the constant vigilance of ASLA advocates—ensuring that the legal right to do your work is never eroded and always moving forward.

Images: Adobe Stock

Latest Gains

Your voice shapes even the most high-profile projects

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts isn’t just an iconic landmark—it is a public space that reflects the full value of landscape architecture at its highest level. So, when sweeping changes were proposed without public review or expert input, it raised a bigger concern: what happens when decisions about the public realm move forward without the people trained to shape it?

In response, a broad coalition, including ASLA, stepped in to challenge the process—drawing a clear line that even the most high-profile projects must include transparency, public input, and professional expertise.

The result: your role isn’t sidelined when the stakes get higher. It’s reinforced—protecting your influence, your credibility, and the standard of the public realm you help create.

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

Image credit: The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Latest Gains
Your expertise is being written into federal funding

Securing the budget for nature-based solutions shouldn't be an uphill battle. With the introduction of the WISE Act by U.S. Reps. Nikema Williams (D-GA) and Emilia Strong Sykes (D-OH), a permanent 20% set-aside within the Clean Water State Revolving Fund would be established specifically for environmentally friendly water infrastructure.

ASLA joined as a key supporter of this legislation to ensure that resilient, green infrastructure is a funded national priority rather than an optional add-on.

Rep. Emilia Strong Sykes

Rep. Emilia Strong Sykes (D-OH)

Rep. Nikema Williams

Rep. Nikema Williams (D-GA)

The gain: a more reliable pipeline of projects where your skills in water quality and resilience are codified into the nation's largest source of federal water financing.

Your feedback, turned into real changes that strengthen your work and the profession.

Voice in Action

With AI shifting how you practice, your judgment stays at the center

Groundwork AI Registrants

839

largest Groundwork session to date

AI is already showing up in landscape architecture practice—in proposals, visualization, research, plant lists, and client conversations. But for many practitioners, the real issue isn't speed. It's responsibility: What can you trust? What should never be handed over? And how do you protect professional judgment, environmental ethics, and client confidence while the tools keep changing?

That tension drove ASLA's Groundwork conversation on artificial intelligence. Practitioners, educators, and skeptics compared how AI is actually being used, where it creates risk, and where landscape architects need to stay firmly in the room—from site analysis to client communication to the growing impact of data centers on land, water, and communities. The response was immediate: the largest Groundwork session to date.

What this means: You now have stronger footing to question, test, and use AI on professional terms—with your judgment, not the tool, defining the work.

ASLA Groundwork AI conversation

2026 Student Award Submissions

515

Your Voice in Action

When the next generation speaks up, the profession responds

For students, the ASLA Student Awards are a defining moment—a chance to be recognized nationally and launch into the profession with momentum. But when the 2026 deadlines were initially aligned with the Professional Awards, they fell at the start of the spring semester. Students were rushing incomplete work over winter break, missing the opportunity to submit fully realized projects that reflect their true abilities. Faculty warned it was impacting not just submissions, but morale—and the strength of the talent pipeline itself.

That feedback drove action. ASLA's Honors & Awards Committee adjusted the process, moving deadlines back to May—when final projects are complete and students can present their strongest work.

What this means: more students able to participate, stronger portfolios on display, and a higher standard for the next generation entering the profession.

Proof that your expertise and impact are being recognized by the voices that shape our culture.

Heard in the Field

“

I want to highlight the work of landscape architects around the world. Landscape architects design and steward public spaces to bring people together and improve our quality of life. Their work is seen in parks, streetscapes, and civic spaces that support public health, strengthen local economies, and respond to environmental challenges.…

Let’s recognize these professionals, including the American Society of Landscape Architects, who are shaping healthier, more sustainable, and better-connected communities nationwide.

U.S. Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nev.)

in celebration of World Landscape Architecture Month 2026 via X

U.S. Rep. Dina Titus

Image courtesy of Dina Titus

Sharpening your practice with the high-level insights and industry intelligence that set you apart.

Competitive Edge

ASLA 2025 Professional Urban Design Honor Award. Generosity of Place: Water Street Tampa’s Continuous Canopy, Tampa, Florida, Reed Hilderbrand | Sahar Coston-Hardy

When you speak the business case, your work moves forward

When developers see the numbers, landscape architecture gains ground. Walkable communities can command 20% to 35% higher home values, greener retail streets can drive 15% to 20% higher sales, and park-adjacent development can grow dramatically faster than surrounding areas. In the two-part series, "How Developers Value Landscape Architecture," those returns came into focus.

The advantage: You gain more than talking points—you gain the hard evidence needed to prove your market value to clients, helping you get brought in earlier and move your best ideas further.