British Columbia Society of Landscape Architects

The British Columbia Society of Landscape Architects (BCSLA) welcomes the opportunity to present the typical role of landscape architects in the condominium construction process to the Barrett Commission. Before describing the typical role of our members in this process, however, we would like to establish the professional credential of landscape architects by briefly describing the legislative history of the BCSLA and the requirements for membership to the Society. This will be followed by an outline of the general scope of work for which landscape architects may be contracted, our lack of recognition under the BC Building Code, the BCSLA’s response to this, the British Columbia Landscape Standard, and the design of landscapes on slab.

The BCSLA is a self-governing society incorporated under the Provincial Society Act with the passing of the Architects (Landscape) Act Chapter 18 in 1968.

The Architects (Landscape) Act Chapter 18 is a name or title act. Section 12 states:

1. A person who is a member in good standing of the society is entitled to use the designation "Landscape Architect".
2. A person who is not a member in good standing of the society must not assume or use that designation in any manner or represent that the person is entitled to do so.

In 1998, the BCSLA amended the objects of the society to better reflect its activities and goals. The amended objects received Royal Assent June 29, 1999. The objects of the society under Section 11 of the Architects (Landscape) Act Chapter 18 are as follows:

1. to uphold public health, safety and welfare as it relates to the professional practice of landscape architecture in British Columbia;
2. to nurture and further the professional application of landscape architectural knowledge and technique as it relates to the planning, design, development, preservation, protection, restoration, reclamation, rehabilitation, enhancement and management of the environment;
3. to advance landscape architectural knowledge and technique;
4. to further and maintain proper standards of professional landscape architectural practice in British Columbia.

An 12 member Board of Directors consisting of the President, Past-President, President-Elect, Registrar, Treasurer, and 7 general Directors governs the Society in keeping with the Society’s Bylaws. An Executive Administrator under the direction of the Board of Directors administers the day-to-day affairs of the society. The BCSLA is a component organization of the Canadian Society of Landscape Architects.

Membership in the BCSLA is based on education, experience and registration exams. The Board-appointed Membership Committee reviews an applicant’s credentials for membership. The Membership Committee makes a recommendation on the specific requirements for membership to the BCSLA Board of Directors on behalf of the applicant. Typically, a member of the BCSLA will hold an undergraduate degree in landscape architecture from an accredited university program. They will have worked under the direction of a registered landscape architect for 2 years, and they are entitled to write a series of pre-exams called the Landscape Architect Registration Examination (LARE) and the Computerize LARE. There are 5 LARE exams dealing with: Legal & Administrative Aspects of Practice; Analytical Aspects of Practice; Planning & Site design; Structural Considerations and Materials & Methods of Construction; Grading, Drainage & Storm Water Management. These pre-exams are administered by the BCSLA for the Council of Landscape Architecture Registration Board (CLARB) based in the United States. This exam is required throughout the United States and in Ontario. The BCSLA was the first province to adopt this examination standard.

Because the LARE is an international exam, it cannot refer to the legislative and regulatory specifics of particular jurisdictions. The Board of Examiners offsets this restriction in B.C. by the final examination of an applicant for membership to the BCSLA.

The BCSLA Board of Examiners consists of the following as noted in Section 8.1 of the Architects (Landscape) Act Chapter 18:

An award of membership to the BCSLA indicates that the landscape architect is competent to practice landscape architecture in British Columbia in a manner that upholds public health, safety and welfare. 

Landscape architects are involved in the condominium development process. The BCSLA is unaware of a condominium development for which a landscape architect has served the developer/owner as a prime consultant. Landscape architects serve as subconsultants, being either contracted directly to the developer, or the prime consultant. More often than not, the prime consultant is an architect.

Other subconsultants with whom the landscape architect may be required to coordinate their design include: structural, civil, electrical, mechanical, geotechnical and hydrological engineers, marketing consultants, land and quantity surveyors.

A landscape architect’s scope of work is project specific. It may vary considerably from project to project as determined by the developer and/or the prime consultant. Landscape architectural services may be divided into 3 general categories:

1. Conceptual Design/Development Permit Application Plans
2. Construction Documents/Building Permit Application Plans
3. Tender/Contract Administration

Under the Municipal Act, a municipality has jurisdiction over the landscape architectural design component of land development at the development permit approval stage only.

Building architectural design is similarly controlled at the development permit stage; however, building design is further regulated at the Building Permit Application stage in accordance with the B.C. Building Code.

Landscape architects submit Building Permit Application drawings to serve the municipality and the developer as construction documents. The developer will use the construction documents to establish detailed cost estimates and for tendering purposes.

Landscape architects will only be involved in the tendering and contract administration of a project if they are contracted to provide such services. Contract administration may involve the field review and acceptance of landscape architectural construction.

There is no requirement under the B.C. Building Code for the landscape architect to be involved in the review of the landscape architectural component of a building development because a landscape architect is not recognized as a Registered Professional within the B.C. Building Code. Accordingly, the Building Code Schedules A, B-1 & B-2 and C relating to the field review of construction do not apply to landscape architects. This does not mean that landscape architects do not provide field review services.

Chart 1 shows the landscape security and inspection requirements of the various municipalities. With the exception of Burnaby and Vancouver, all municipalities require a security deposit on the landscape component of construction. Nine of sixteen municipalities require a letter of supervision from the landscape architect of record. This requires that landscape architects be contracted to review the construction of their landscape design. At the time of a building permit application, owners and the coordinating registered professional may ask landscape architects to submit Schedule B-1 Assurance of Professional Design and Commitment for Field Review even though the schedule makes no reference to landscape architects. The BCSLA assumes its members are asked to do this because neither the owner nor the coordinating registered professional wants to undertake to be responsible for field reviews of the landscape architectural elements of construction.

Landscape construction is referenced in Schedule B-2 Summary of Design and Field Review Requirements under the Architectural discipline as 1.13 Landscaping, screening and site grading. The Architectural discipline to which the B.C. Building Code refers applies only to registered architects as defined by the Architectural Institute of British Columbia. For this reason, and because landscape architects are not registered professionals as defined in the B.C. Building Code, the schedules signed by a landscape architect have no legal validity in relation to that code. Nevertheless, having submitted modified Schedules B-1 and B-2, landscape architects may also be asked to submit Schedule C Assurance of Professional Field Review and Compliance.

In response to this situation, the BCSLA and some municipalities have adapted the Building Code schedules and created landscape schedules for use by landscape architects and their clients. The BCSLA intends to take the BCSLA landscape schedules forward at its 2000 Annual General Meeting for endorsement by the membership. Though excluded as registered professionals from the building code, the society argues that landscape architects are registered professionals and should therefore offer the requisite assurance of professional design and a commitment for field review. The proposed BCSLA landscape schedules are appended to this document.

The provincial Building Standards branch defines "landscape" as an aesthetic concern that is not related to occupancy or code issues. The BCSLA disagrees with this. To define our professional contribution solely as "Landscaping, screening and site grading" is misleading. We have expanded the summary of landscape design and field review requirements to reflect the real scope of our work:

In our urban region, because of densification, land values and zoning regulations, landscape architectural practice is distinguished by its creation of landscapes on built structure; more often than not, condominium developments. In the past few decades, landscape architects have become increasingly skilled at working over structure. Outside the building, they often start with a blank slab to which they are contracted to bring spatial organization and life. This activity must be coordinated with the architects and engineers who create the slab and the building it supports. The structural, waterproofing and drainage characteristics of the slab are accounted for when putting a landscape on structure. These things are not the landscape architect’s responsibility, however, they are pre-existing conditions with which a landscape architect’s design must be coordinated.

A project structural engineer will tell the landscape architect the structural characteristics of a slab relative to the load of a proposed landscape, for example. As well, although it is typical for a slab to be sloped away from a building to facilitate drainage, slab drains may be required to more efficiently provide drainage relative to proposed landscape features. These drains though required due to a landscape, would be specified by a mechanical engineer. Landscape architects do not specify the waterproofing of a structure. The construction they are responsible for initiating begins on the protection board that is on top of the waterproof membrane.

The building-landscape interface varies from project to project. In some cases, the landscape will never touch the building. A separation may be created with a secondary wall that sits away from the building on material such as gravel to facilitate drainage. The landscape material contained will determine the height of the secondary wall. If growing medium is placed adjacent to a building wall, the building architect is responsible for designing the building walls accordingly.

Landscape on structure falls into 2 general categories: at-grade and contained.

1. An at-grade landscape gives little, if any indication of the slab. Paths, patios and planting areas are flush and create the finished grade at a depth above the slab that generally corresponds with the requirements of the specified plants.
2. A contained landscape reveals the slab by putting the planting areas in raised planters of a sufficient depth to support plant life. Paths and patios will be separated from the slab only by drainage material on top of the protection board.

Regardless of the landscape finish, there will be a drainage layer between the protection board and the landscape elements.

The landscape component of a condominium development plays a big part in that development’s marketable image, its aesthetic. This aesthetic must be balanced with the realities of creating a functional landscape whether on slab or on grade. To this end, the BCSLA, in conjunction with the British Columbia Landscape & Nursery Association (BCLNA), has published the British Columbia Landscape Standard. The BCSLA and the BCLNA adopted the first edition of this standard in the spring of 1984. In 1997 the 4^th and latest edition was published.

The BC Landscape Standard is unique in Canada. British Columbia is the only jurisdiction in which the landscape architects, as represented by the BCSLA, have worked with landscape contractors, the turfgrass, irrigation and nursery industries, as represented by the BCLNA, to agree on a standard for soft landscape construction. Landscape construction is generally divided into 2 categories: hard landscape and soft landscape. The Landscape Standard refers only to soft landscape construction because hard landscape construction: walkways, steps, railings, driveways, retaining walls and built structure, is regulated by Building Code, manufacturers’, municipal, or engineering standards. The purpose of the BC Landscape Standard is:

"… to document what has been agreed upon by both the [BCLNA] and the BCSLA to be an acceptable level of landscape construction, and to set guidelines that will upgrade landscape work throughout the province. It is hoped that Federal, Provincial, and Municipal agencies will adopt the Standard and will require inspections of all [landscape] work to ensure compliance with the provisions of the Standard. In addition, it is intended that Landscape Architects, Park Boards and other specifiers of landscape work will simplify and standardize their specifications by referring to the Standard."

 

The BC Landscape Standard is organized as follows:

1. General Requirements (Division 1)
2. Site Preparation and Protection of Existing Vegetation (02100)
3. Grading (02220)
4. Drainage (02400)
5. Growing Medium (02260)
6. Lawns and Grass (includes hydraulic seeding) (02486-7-9)
7. B.C. Standard for Turfgrass Sod
8. Plants and Planting (02940)
9. Mulching
10. Landscape over Structures
11. BCLNTA Standard for Container Grown Plants
12. Establishment Maintenance
13. Landscape Maintenance

(The numbers in parentheses are the section numbers of the Construction Specifications Canada National Master Specification. They are include for the purpose of cross referencing)

The landscape associated with a condominium development is a complex system. Every aspect of landscape design and construction is important to the overall function and appearance of a landscape installation. In the 31 years that the BCSLA has governed the professional activities of the province’s landscape architects, the society has not received a formal complaint about a member’s practice jeopardizing public health, safety and welfare relative to condominium development. Regardless, the BCSLA continues to modify and upgrade the BC Landscape Standard to reflect "best" practices as they are revealed and defined by research, application and experience. The BCSLA believes that the BC Landscape Standard is the minimum standard for soft landscape construction; as do the local municipalities who have adopted the standard as shown in Chart 1.

This presentation is made to the Commission from the point of view of the BCSLA. The society cannot speak to the specifics of individual members’ practice. It is our contention, however, that the development industry and condominium owners and residents would be better served by a regulatory environment that acknowledged landscape architects as registered professionals. Municipal building, planning and parks departments that require landscape architects to offer what is essentially an assurance of professional design and a commitment for field review recognize this. The BCSLA, its registered members, and particular municipalities have, and will continue to work together to create an approvals and review process that results in the design and installation of appropriate and attractive landscapes for all types of land development.