Hear From The Ohio State LABash 2026 Team

by Zach Curry, Student ASLA, and Sam Clemente, Student Affiliate ASLA

"One thing unique to University of Guelph this year is the student rep committee. We talk about how students are feeling about curriculum, workload, and studio culture. We try to find solutions like peer support, resources, and curriculum changes. The committee bridges the gap between students and professors. For example, students had trouble with portfolios or AutoCAD, and we worked to update outdated plant inventories. Professors have been really receptive."

- Emily Pham, Student ASLA, and Kaithleen Gacita

by Zach Curry, Student ASLA, and Sam Clemente, Student Affiliate ASLA

"...as landscape architects we still want to be like our predecessors and master all trades. We want to be the general expert in the room, but then we also know how to collaborate with the civil engineer, the ecologist, the botanist, the planner, or the policy maker. It's up to us as landscape architects to learn more about how to be leaders and collaborators, working with all the different disciplines like conducting an orchestra."

- Gillian Ford, Student ASLA

by Claire Baltimore and Sam Clemente, Student Affiliate ASLA

"We're actually the oldest program in the United States, and a few years ago we had our 125th Anniversary. We're older than Harvard in terms of program (established 1898!), but they are older than us in terms of graduates. But if anyone asks and they say Harvard had the first program, say, 'Actually!'"

- Grace Densham, Student ASLA

by Zach Curry, Student ASLA, and Sam Clemente, Student Affiliate ASLA

"I think something that's really great about our studios is we don't gatekeep - we really do try to collaborate. So if you see somebody that's working on a really cool graphic, you can approach that person and say, 'hey, how are you making this?' And then usually people respond, 'oh, this is the tool I use and how to do it.'"

- Lauren Johnson, Student ASLA

by Piper Kozlowski, Student ASLA, Nadia Ndematabem, Sam Clemente, Student Affiliate ASLA, Zach Curry, Student ASLA

"So the collaboration with the other disciplines primarily comes from the collaborative studio in our fourth year when we actually have all three disciplines come together. Losing landscape architecture would be a serious detriment to the collaborative studio because you lose the space-making with the exterior. You're able to put in a courtyard and plaza, but you don't have the same understanding of space with the plant materials, seasonality, and the actual ecological considerations that you put into it. I fear that without landscape architecture in those projects, it would be more about tree placing than space making."

- Danielle Braunsroth, Student ASLA

by Sam Clemente, Student Affiliate ASLA

"At LABash 2026, we'll celebrate how landscape architecture truly excels in facing wicked problems. We'll grow your repertoire of design precedents, dive deeper into the forces that shape our landscape designs, and improve the skills that make our field unique. But, we'll also look beyond North America and the traditional precedents of our time. We will examine how landscape architecture interacts with other disciplines, how language might impact our perspective on the field, as well as the power we hold outside of the design realm."