Current trends in Architecture

[Mike_Young]

Forrest,

Ken and Dick studied landscape architecture at University of Illinois, as did their predecessor RB Harris. They (and from my time there, University of Illinois) just had an engineering bent.  The reason was simple - they felt the landscape architect was devalued if he/she had to turn over too many services to architects and engineers.  Years ago, the well trained gca did the irrigation, sometimes the feasibility study, the land planning (at least RBH) and so forth.  Just as superintendents fight the "Bill Murray" image as something less than top professionals, landscape architects fought and fight the image of being tree and bush folks.   Of course, ASGCA felt similar when founded, and always touted plans, specs, and engineering required for golf courses as an important distinction.   

If Harris or Nugent were still practicing, they would lament projects being "fee'd" to death, starting with irrigation designers, irrigation programmers, land planners, wetland experts, historians, engineers, pro consultants, etc.

Between the world getting more complicated, and even the profession itself is de-valuing the plans approach somewhat now. 
Maybe its the lawyers who advise us, but design contracts now are a few pages of what you will do, and dozens more saying what you won't or can't do for fear of liability.  And certainly, fewer plans (think cart path, drainage and irrigation, where is where things tend to go wrong the most) make for less liability.  Hard to get sued for art, arm waving and the like, but to me, the perception and practice of having more of the big picture problems being solved largely by others, as Mike suggests, is a bit troublesome for gca's.

Jeff,

The " suggestion" I made is a little different from the way you have it phrased here.  In most states the sediment and erosion plan, any drainage tied into the overall development plan and a few other things will need to be stamped by an engineer.  Forrest also mentions being more involved with such engineering aspect of the project.  And YES a good golf architect can hide much of what an engineer will have exposed when it comes to drainage and a few other areas but I don't care who gets the credit for getting the canvas ready to build the course.  So much of what we are arguing about here has to do with whether the client wants to think the golf architect did it or the engineer.  I'm not talking about letting some engineer FU the golf course. Your first paragraph reads to me as though the golf architects mentioned were more worried about how they were perceived to bring knowledge to the job than   I would be.   But in the end, if the way a guy wants to get the finished product done works for him and the client then who cares?   

[Jeff_Brauer]

Mike,

Certainly any owner can choose any construction method they want.  There is a reason all of those exist.

My comment on how they would feel reflects long ago discussions with Dick N, not anything to do with any of your comments.

However, to use your term, some of us do believe "getting the canvas ready" is an important part of golf course architecture, too.  Most golf courses serve many functions concurrently with golf, including real estate amenity, detention area, wetlands filter, wildlife sanctuary, and on and on and on. Not to mention, in some cases, we are planning for 2, 5, and even 10 or 20 years out.  Obviously, plans are needed in many cases.

If we design all elements from the start (using engineers to tell us how big a detention pond needs to be, but us designing the shape and location and allowing them to double check the calculations, all of which has to be done before getting a floodplain permit in most cases) then we aren't preventing or covering up an engineer from "F ing up the site" we are in control of it and designing it right for the golf course from the start.  To my mind, that is an important distinction between our views of what golf course architects can and should do.

And, while not to be condescending to anyone, when you have my opinion of what constitutes golf course architecture, those who put the finishing golf touches on top of someone else's canvas are just playing in the dirt. Sure, it is important, and that is what most of us are interested in, and more power to those who can make a living doing only that. 

As mentioned, there are lots of different types of golf design projects.  While the golf buffs on this site probably dream only of dream sites, I am mentioning all of the above just to educate them that the Pete Dye method isn't applicable to all situations, and there are times when you simply can't leave it all to the field.  It costs too much to redo the engineers work (if even allowed)  just because you didn't or couldn't design it on paper in the first place. 

No building, road, bridge, etc. has ever been built without them, which should tell us something.  I, too, love that golf doesn't require us to get down to inches and we can free lance in the field a bit.  Plans aren't always perfect, but it is what I believe to be the best design process to accomplish many aspects of golf course design efficiently and quickly, at least on the (for me) typical project. 

Of course, both you and I are free to tout the benefits of our respective methods, and we know there is more cross over than these arguments would show.  All what you call "hype" is hoping to educate an individual client to make an informed decision about the skill set of architect relative to their respective projects. They often don't, but that is a discussion for another day.

Cheers.