I am currently working at Prairie Workshop with Mr. Jason Hodges, a licensed Landscape Architect, in Lubbock, Texas. At Prairie Workshop, we work on a variety of commercial, residential, and also consulting projects. Thus far I have worked with Mr. Hodges on a new entrance for the Abilene Regional Airport, several residential projects, and a consulting job for the Ranching Heritage Museum and their testing of new rangeland seeding/plantings. The diverse nature of the field has certainly kept me interested in the field and I have already learned a good deal about the profession from Mr. Hodges.
The Abilene Airport entrance was one of the first projects I began working on with Mr. Hodges. The client wanted to revamp a somewhat bland landscape in order to bring more attention to the airport entrance. The only existing signage is a sign that is set back quite far from the road making the entrance difficult to find for non-residents of Abilene. Through the interaction with the client Mr. Hodges and I determined that more permanent form would serve the area better than simply planting. We hand drafted several concepts involving a combination of stone walls and berms that I then took into a 3-D Modeling program known as SketchUp. I worked with several configurations while going to Mr. Hodges for guidance and input when necessary. Once the forms and planting were adequately developed we sent several images to the client and he later expressed his satisfaction with the images. I am currently working on several illustrative construction details of the wall in order to present the client with a variety of choices of materials.
This is simply one project of many that I have worked on with Mr. Hodges, but it was one of the first. It quickly gave me a better understanding of how one approaches a professional project.