Required Reading for Landscape Architects.The Changing Roles of Landscape Design in Nature-Based Solutions.The Changing Roles of Landscape Design in Nature-Based Solutions, Part 3.Sustainable Design and Development (61).Residential Landscape Architecture (14).By promoting the PLA designation, ASLA is seeking to raise the public profile of the profession and bring clarity to the credentials used by landscape architects.īy Julia Lent, Managing Director of Government Affairsįollow The Field to receive notifications of new posts. Unfortunately, the evolution of licensure credentials have produced a mishmash of combinations that hurt the profession’s ability to be known and understood as licensed professionals. While some may avoid the “alphabet soup” associated with today’s professional credentials, many landscape architects prefer to use these designations. The use of customary designations is a time-tested way to demonstrate qualifications. Since “professional” does not have a legal meaning it can serve to mean any duly qualified landscape architect. In these states, the term RLA may in effect be a demotion. Many states that advocated to upgrade their laws from title act to practice act changed this terminology from registration to licensure to achieve the practice act. For example, it is unlikely that someone in a registration state will use LLA. Each state has specific uses of these terms or do not use them at all. One of the chief obstacles of achieving that goal is that registration and licensure have distinct legal meanings. Why PLA? PLA will best allow the profession to reach the goal of one universal designation. ASLA is encouraging the use of PLA to prod the evolution toward one universal designation for licensure. Over the years, LLA has emerged as licensure terminology took hold, with far more states using those terms to convey practice act licensure and the use of registration trending more toward title act licensure. As landscape architects began to be licensed in the 1950s, registration was the common terminology and RLA was initially the best way to convey credentials. As a marketing tool to quickly convey credentials, designations are not regulated by the government and they have evolved as licensure terminology has evolved. Post nominal letters are more difficult to track. For the licensee stamp, states are split evenly between ‘licensed landscape architect’ and ‘registered landscape architect’ while many states use ‘professional landscape architect’ or just simply ‘landscape architect.’ Some landscape architects licensed in more than one state face choosing between LLA and RLA.Ĭurrently 30 states use licensure nomenclature for professional regulation of landscape architects, while only 13 use registration. Those who have not yet been licensed often use MLA or BLA. Many use RLA, LLA, PLA, LA, or CLA to signify licensure. Until now, there has been no uniform way for a licensed (or registered) landscape architect to indicate that he or she is licensed. As an abbreviation of the title “professional landscape architect,” PLA allows potential clients and the general public to better identify licensed landscape architects. Last fall, ASLA approved the Universal Designation Policy, which encourages all licensed landscape architects to use the post nominal letters “PLA” after their names. How do you identify yourself as a landscape architect? RLA? LLA? CLA? How about PLA?
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