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Landscape Architects do a lot of different kinds of work. Our field overlaps many others including planning, urban design, architecture, civil engineering, and even interior design. We often collaborate with ecologists, conservation authorities, horticulturalists, surveyors, arborists, stormwater engineers, transit authorities, traffic engineers, government, private developers, and all kinds of trades such as carpenters, metal-workers, bricklayers, and artists.
There are some times, especially in residential landscape design, where what we do appears to overlap with landscape designers and gardeners. So, can anyone do landscape architecture? Can just anyone call themselves a landscape architect?
Landscape Architecture is a registered profession by law, protected under a title act or a practice act depending on the province or state that you are in. In places that have a title act (also known as a 'name law'), only a registered professional landscape architect can use the name 'landscape architect'. A practice act makes it law that only a licenced professional landscape architect can perform the specific activities of a landscape architect.
In many places both the name and the activity of a landscape architect are protected by law. This is for the health, safety, and welfare of the general public, just the same as it is illegal for unqualified people to run around calling themselves doctors or pretending to be lawyers.
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