[Music] hi i'm miss penny from kid vision pre-k and we're here today to find out about landscape architecture and so please introduce yourselves great it's good to be here my name is rebecca bradley and i'm one of the founders of cadence landscape architects and i'm gage couch the other founder of cadence and some of our projects involve residences hotels commercial projects we even do public parks and open spaces so everything you see outside that is put together with plants that's what you do is design that exactly so not only the plants but the hardscape and pools and shade structures and you know all kinds of different elements so we look at you know the outside as outdoor rooms just like an architect would look at a building with inside rooms so we designed with that approach and that sense of style and in mind how did you get into landscape architecture i grew up taking ballet and doing performing arts and i knew i wanted to do something creative as a professional and i also loved the outdoors and landscape architecture kind of mixes both of those things because as a landscape architect you're creating spaces for people to have experiences and to move around the outdoors i was always very hands-on with in building things growing up i spent a lot of time outside i have a passion for being outdoors i think the combination of being outside nature and plants combined with my love of crafting things is where it brought me to today and what does your typical day look like any given day we could be working on site with someone that's installing one of our projects so we could be outdoors we could be working at the computer designing things or editing some of our designs on the telephone doing emails coordinating with the team of people that it takes to put these projects together to go out a lot and inspect your your projects as they're being constructed yeah we do we spend a lot of time on site that's called construction administration and we are involved very early we go out on site to see uh even before we start to design the opportunities and the constraints what's possible out there in combination with what the client sees as their vision for the property and then throughout the process we're constantly checking in on the site and testing that our design works i would love to learn how the project starts so could we please see the design process of course yes we'd love to share that with you great this is the first part of landscape architecture and that's the design that's correct okay can you tell us about that sure so there's a design process that we follow as landscape architects similar to many of the other professional designers so the first thing you do is you take a look at the existing conditions of the site so right now we're looking at an existing survey or site plan of of this particular home yes the one we're at right now yeah yeah so um what's important for us to understand is we first as we're taking a look at the site we understand where the building is located right and we want to understand where the doors and windows are on the home so we can think about circulation and we can think about views from windows and doors to the outside this helps us decide where different elements of the garden and the outdoor living environment will all go we also talk with the clients and try to understand what do they really want to see in their yard and what are some things that are important to them for this particular client privacy was very important their backyard is close to the homes that are on the back of their yard and then they have a huge two actually huge existing oak trees on the site and we want to make sure to save those oak trees and make sure that the design works around that what was also important is they had an existing small pool and they wanted to get rid of that and they wanted to have a much larger pool so we have to look and see where is a good spot with the sun orientation that they'll have some good sun on the pool this particular client is from ohio and fire pit and sitting around in the evening with their family on the cooler nights in florida was important for them and they wanted another big tree in their front yard so that the children could have a big swing to sit in so this is kind of how it starts we just kind of diagram we look and try to figure out placement of things and this is the end of kind of the diagramming and site analysis and then once you have the general plan do you pick materials from that we do so we're thinking about materials from the very beginning as well so as we're designing the space you know we might start thinking about what kind of marble can go on the pool deck sometimes we'll also use artificial turf when the shade is too much how do you choose what plants go in from the very beginning we start to develop a plant palette with the client based on their sensitivities and their aesthetics we're very much into florida native plants so that means plants that are indigenous to the region that we're in so that they're more drought tolerant more pest resistant they withstand hurricanes here in south florida we'll put together a list and some pictures and start to show them what it looks like now what it looks like when it grows in but we also like to show some of the ecological benefits of the plants such as birds butterflies bees pollinators and things like that so you bring in a whole ecosystem we absolutely do and it's really neat to see the life that it brings and also the benefits that it brings with the animals as well i would love to see a project in construction yeah we'd love to take you we've got something happening a few streets over so we'll take you over there and check it out oh that's wonderful i would love to go let's go [Music] now we're at an actual construction site and we can see what's happening can you explain it absolutely so today we've got the crew here moving some dirt around to fill in this space and putting in some block walls around the perimeter to actually raise the elevation of the entire yard that way it'll be nice and flat and have some space for the kids to play in there's a lot of base work to do before you get to the actual planting there is a lot of base work the demo and the actual prepping of the site is really important as well just as important as putting in the final plants as well and we're actually going to be moving this big palm tree that you see right here as well we're bringing in a bigger shade tree so that it'll cast some shade on the lawn and allow the kids to have some shade when they're playing out here you must need some heavy equipment to do we do and we've got some here today to do that wow it's a lot of work the architecture and putting it all together and then the reality of making it really happen it is most of the time these projects take anywhere from three to four months at a minimum up to uh several years depending on how big the project is for some of the bigger commercial ones i never knew so much took place yes thank you very much for teaching us about landscape architecture we learned so much it's a very interesting profession and i hope that we inspire young children to follow your path we hope so too thanks for having us we had a great time me too thank you thank you