As landscape architects, it’s always interesting to hear what people think our profession is about. Usually, people think of landscape architects as either gardeners, landscapers, arborists, or florists. The truth is that we do have knowledge of a wide variety of plants, but knowing about plants and trees is only a small part of what a landscape architect actually does daily.

As an example, I was recently asked about a tree problem in a friend’s garden. Luckily, I could answer the question but only because I’ve seen a lot of tree issues in 35+ years of practicing landscape architecture. Learning about tree or plant problems has been a necessity because it really is more of a test question: answer correctly and you’re an expert, answer incorrectly and your clients will know more than you do. Ouch.

During my time living and working abroad in Mexico, I perceived a concept which shaped me personally and professionally. It was a notion which was unfamiliar to me at the time but that is now fundamental: the idea of the living streets. Initially, to think of the street was to think of my car. It was understood the street was intended for vehicular traffic, minimal pedestrian movement and nothing else. It felt as if I were to cross the street, I would be invading the space meant for the car.

Mexico City radically reshaped this notion for me. Once there I was shocked, not by the cracked pavement or the large puddles, but by the activity on them - an ever-ending motion which was active, dynamic, energetic, as I like to say, pulsing. It was the interaction between neighbors and strangers, the echo of chatter and laughter, the flow of people moving from space to space like the flow of water. These spaces not only transported cars, even better, they served as pedestrian highways, meeting points, leisure areas, commercial venues and music stages. All of these activities which before seemed to occur in different locations, they were now happening in the same place, the streets.