Robyn Lane Explores Misconceptions Around Landscape Architecture, Learning Opportunities

Tara Ferkel

Robyn Lane is a teaching assistant professor of landscape architecture in the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design. She joined the school as an adjunct faculty member in the fall of 2022 and moved into a full-time position in 2023.

Editor's Note: As the U of A strives to become an employer of choice, the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design is highlighting the faculty and staff who help the school excel.

Robyn Lane, teaching assistant professor of landscape architecture, joined the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design as an adjunct faculty member in the fall of 2022. She moved into a full-time position in 2023.

Lane, a three-time alumna of the U of A, has a doctorate in environmental dynamics, a master's degree in geography and a Bachelor of Landscape Architecture.

After graduating with her bachelor's degree, Lane worked as a licensed landscape architect and project manager involved in commercial site development, municipal improvement projects and park design, primarily focusing on low-impact urban development.

While in this role, Lane was working on a large project in Hot Springs. Although the site was perfectly located in terms of the market, it was ill-suited for development. It was the late 1990s, and the site work for the project cost more than $8 million.

"I started thinking just because we can do something doesn't mean we should. That's what motivated me to go back to grad school," Lane said.

As she completed her doctorate, Lane began working as a research assistant at the Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies. Her 12 years there were primarily allocated to education and outreach in applied geospatial technologies for K-12, post-secondary and adult continuing education.

Through each of her roles, Lane has been correcting misconceptions about landscape architecture. She said, locally, misconceptions often stem from the fact that Arkansas is still largely a rural state, and it's hard for people to understand something they have never seen. But the issue extends beyond Arkansas.

Lane serves on the exam writing committee for the Council of Landscape Architectural Registration Boards, which is responsible for organizing, structuring and administrating the national registration exam. Even though the exam is only administered three times throughout the year, there are rarely more than 400 people registered for it across the United States and Canada.

That lack of presence on a national level is an ongoing issue.

Trained landscape architects often end up working in a vast array of disciplines and areas, which makes classifying the field more difficult. Landscape architects do everything outdoors from small courtyards to continental-scale land plans. Within cities, landscape architects work in between buildings, on roadways and with mass transit systems. They often specialize as city planners, golf course designers or in residential or green roof design. Lane said some landscape architects specialize even further in fountain design and lighting design.

"There are so many things that are landscape architecture adjacent that I don't think you can categorize any one group of landscape architects," Land said. "They don't all do the same thing. I think the fact that we are so broad contributes to the lack of understanding of what landscape architecture is."

While landscape architects can provide valuable insight into plant selection and location, they should be an integral part of a project's full design process, Lane said. Ideally, she added, landscape architects act as the linchpin between the project architects and engineers. As such, they design the site plan before architects design a building. Then, after the building or structure is developed, the landscape architects design the rest of the site in response to the building. Finally, engineers plan the integration of any water, electrical or mechanical elements.

Lane said this flow of work for each project is ideal as landscape architects are trained to look at the whole picture of a site, evaluating people's behaviors, the design elements and the necessary organization of spaces and activity.

Students in the school's landscape architecture program are not unaware of these misconceptions they'll face in their future career. Lane said landscape architecture faculty are always talking with students about how they will need to educate clients, other professionals and the public about who they are and what they can do. 

"They are aware of it, but it is a long-running frustration. Because it's not just the public; many of our allied professionals don't understand our skillsets and think that we're just plant people," Lane said.

And while the small size of the profession exacerbates these frustrations, Lane said it does have its benefits. For one, those in the profession tend to be more connected. This has allowed her to help students forge connections around the country.

That personal aspect is a large part of what she's proud of when reflecting on her career thus far.

"When I look back on my accomplishments, I think about how much help I had to get there," Lane said. "The accomplishments that I'm most proud of are the relationships I've built over the years and that those have been ongoing. You look at any of my accomplishments, and there is no way I could have finished them without a strong network."

Read the full Q&A with Lane.