Is professional growth through mentorship dead!?
One thing I’ve been noticing more in the landscape architecture profession is the growing disconnect between senior professionals and junior staff when it comes to mentorship and knowledge sharing.
I understand why it happens. Senior landscape architects today are under immense pressure — deadlines, project delivery, client management, staffing issues, meetings, business development, and administrative responsibilities. The workload can become so consuming that there’s little time left to intentionally teach younger staff beyond immediate production needs.
But I also think the profession is quietly losing something important because of this.
Historically, landscape architecture seemed to function much more like an apprenticeship profession. Junior designers learned not only technical skills, but practical judgment directly from experienced professionals. Senior staff would explain why certain grading approaches worked, how materials performed over time, how contractors interpreted drawings, what failed in the field, and how ecological systems actually responded after installation. Those lessons went far beyond what we learned in school.
That transfer of knowledge is what helped shape future leaders in the profession.
Today, many younger professionals are expected to learn primarily through deadlines and trial-and-error. While schools provide the academic foundation, there are countless realities of practice that can only be learned through mentorship and shared experience.
This matters because landscape architecture carries enormous responsibility environmentally, ecologically, socially, and economically. We influence stormwater systems, habitat restoration, urban heat reduction, public spaces, long-term land use, and the health of communities. These are not small responsibilities. They require not only technical competency, but developed judgment.
And judgment is usually passed down through experience.
I don’t think mentorship in practice should be viewed as an optional extra when time allows. I think it’s part of the responsibility of sustaining the profession itself. Even small things — site walk conversations, design critiques, explaining construction challenges, project debriefs, or involving younger staff in decision-making discussions — can have a huge impact on developing stronger future practitioners.
If we want the profession to continue evolving responsibly, knowledge transfer has to remain part of the culture of practice, not something sacrificed entirely to production demands.
Curious if others in the profession have noticed this shift as well. #professionalpractice #la #landscapearchitecture