Residential Design Award Detective

Since landscape architects are a talented but humble group, the award detective is snooping the web for evidence of blatant attempts to get recognized by their peers. The best part is finding outstanding works!!

First stop, we checked out the ususal suspects in Illinois at the
Chapter website http://www.il-asla.org/. Under the awards section, you will find several beautiful residential design projects by NLH Landscape Architects, Mariani Landscape, and Douglas Hoerr landscape Architecture, Inc.

Congratulations!!!

Residential Development Roundtable

As you may have heard, ASLA is planning a new series of four Client Roundtables for the 2007 ASLA Annual Meeting and EXPO, October 6-9, in San Francisco .

One of the roundtables will focus on the residential market and we are very interested in hearing your suggestions for whom to invite to participate on this panel. Ideally, we are looking for panelists who design and/or build homes at all scales:

National home builders
Senior living and multi-family home builders
Custom home builders
Architects (both who design luxury and mid-market homes)

We want to recruit a diverse panel to share their perspectives on what consumers want, emerging trends, what landscape architecture amenities add value to communities and to individual homes, how they currently work with landscape architects, what their needs are and how landscape architects can help, and much more.

In addition to providing our attendees with valuable market information, these panelists will be able to network with literally thousands of landscape architects, take advantage of an amazing continuing education program highlighting residential design, and tour the incredible EXPO trade show. It’s a great public relations opportunity for ASLA to impress a group of the profession’s largest clients.

Please send me your suggestions and any contact or background information you might have via reply email.

Thank you so much for your help!

Ann Looper
Director of Public Relations and Resource Development
American Society of Landscape Architects
636 Eye St., NW
Washington , DC 20001
202-216-2369 phone
202-842-0861 fax
alooper@asla.org
www.asla.org

Marketing Opportunity-Don't Miss this One!!

ASLA received an inquiry from the Home & Garden Television website, http://www.hgtv.com for photos of landscape and hardscaping design. These photos will only be used for the web, and all will be credited. This is excellent exposure as this is the number one visited Home & Garden site on the web.

Specifically, they need:
hardscaping photos in the mid-economic range ($20-40,000)
fruit gardens (no orchards, rather fruit plants incorporated into the landscape)
They will be using these photos in upcoming features, so you'll need to submit as soon as possible, if interested.

Photos should be submitted directly to HGTV at the contact information provided below. Please cc Ashley Owens of ASLA as well so they can give you proper credit in our outreach materials. Thanks and have a great weekend!


HGTV Web contact:
Caren Baginski Assistant Editor
(865) 560-3900
cbaginski@scrippsnetworks.com

Editors Special Request

We’re writing to encourage you to enter your residential work in the 2007 ASLA Professional Awards. Award recipients in the Residential Category are featured in both Landscape Architecture magazine and Garden Design magazine, as well as other industry and general media publications. It’s a great way to garner recognition for your work and reach potential residential clients.
The deadline for receipt of entry forms is Friday, February 9, and submissions are due February 23. Entry forms are available online, as well as tips for improving your submissions.
Good luck!

Bill Thompson, FASLAEditor in Chief, Landscape Architecture magazine
Bill MarkenEditor in Chief, Garden Design magazine

Winning Strategies from ASLA

ASLA has provided a helpful guide for anyone considering a project awards program. Whether it is a local competition or national - these points are absolutely terrific. I have always found entering a project benefical even if we are unsuccessful. You gain great written narratives and photography that can be used for marketing material etc.... You should be spending the money anyhow. You can also enter more than one competition with the same pictures and copy. So, remember to take those pictures at the right time - when things look the best.

http://www.asla.org/awards/2007/rules_entries/winning.html

That reminds me, in a past job, my co-workers and I used to look for dead shrubs in industry trade ads. You would be surprised at how bad the plants look in the pictures!!

Garden Rant worth the Visit

One of our favorite fellow blogs is Garden Rant. It is oriented toward the interests of residential garden designers. They also consider the ASLA blog , "The Dirt", to be a favorite of theirs. Check it out!!

See the beauty of a field of red twig dogwood. . . . .

www.gardenrant.com