It’s easy to get angry. In the aftermath of a project, the clients, media, public and our collaborators can be guilty of failing to recognize the contribution – the authorship – of the landscape architect. For myself, as a practitioner and director of Aspect Studios, to be an author of a project means the practice and I have participated significantly in the design and delivery of that project. Usually, the position is one of co-authorship. True single authorship, by a person or entity, is rare.
On the one hand, I believe we should live in a generous world where recognition of authorship is neither needed nor sought. We, as designers, are active participants in a complex, overdetermined, post-truth public realm, always working with others as co-authors. Our projects change over time, not just because of their nature (for instance, the plants in them grow, the materials in them weather) but because we’ve
