A Professional Practice talk given by Mike Joffe of EDP

  7th February 2018

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Mike Joffe came to the profession of landscape architecture by a different route from Dan Bowles who spoke last week (see previous blog entry). Dan completed the four year course at Cheltenham straight after leaving school. Mike by contrast first graduated in information technology but being impressed by a designed landscape when skiing in France and suitably inspired, chose to have a career change and enrolled on the two-year conversion course at Cheltenham. So now he’s been at EDP in Barnsley, near Cirencester, for a few years and his talk to the AD5000 students last Friday illustrated and expanded on a wide range of projects undertaken by the large practice whose services include planning and design, arboriculture, estate planning and agriculture, ecology and biodiversity, archaeology and cultural heritage, all under one roof. This overview was useful but I noted two points at the end which he stressed are worthy of consideration: (i) in dealing with clients and the public, it is essential that landscape drawings communicate accurately and logically through a careful choice of clear graphic symbols, and (ii) the value of hand-drawn sketches (possibly derived from SketchUp visualisations) which seem to offer a uniquely personal touch and also a graphic softening to what can otherwise be garish computer output.

Thanks, Mike, your talk was such a useful reality check!