Getting licensed as a landscape architect is an investment of time, and it’s an investment of money too. The good news is that the Council of Landscape Architectural Registration Boards (CLARB) publishes its fees in one place, so you can plan your budget before you register for your first section. Here’s every CLARB fee you’re…
Ask a room of licensed landscape architects which L.A.R.E. section worried them most, and a lot of hands go up for Grading, Drainage, and Stormwater Management (GDSM, still called “Section 4” by most candidates). It’s the most technical of the four exams, and many designers go years without grading a site from scratch. The good…
If you’re working toward licensure, you already know the Landscape Architect Registration Examination (LARE) takes a lot of time and focus. It also costs real money, since you pay a fee for each of the four sections. For many candidates, especially early-career designers and recent graduates, those fees can be what decides when to schedule…
There’s no required sequence. You can take the four sections in any order, one at a time or several in a single administration, so the real question is which order fits you. One caveat: CLARB’s rules and your state board’s can change, so confirm them before you plan. What the Rules Allow CLARB lets you…
Every candidate asks this, and there’s no official number. CLARB doesn’t prescribe study hours, and the right answer depends on your experience, the section, and how much life you have outside of work. What I can offer is a practical range and a way to adjust it. The Short Answer For most working candidates, 6…
You can’t take the L.A.R.E. whenever you like. CLARB, the Council of Landscape Architectural Registration Boards, offers the exam three times a year, in spring, summer, and winter, and each administration has a fixed testing window and a hard registration deadline. Miss the deadline and you’re waiting months for the next window. Here’s every date…
Failing a section of the Landscape Architect Registration Examination (LARE) stings. You studied, you sacrificed evenings and weekends, you told people you were taking it and now you’re staring at a score report you don’t want to open. First, you’re in good company. Plenty of excellent, fully licensed landscape architects retook at least one section….
One of the hardest meetings in landscape architecture isn’t the one where a design gets criticized. It’s the one where everyone loves the ideas, and you have to explain that they can’t all happen. A colleague of mine saw this play out firsthand. His firm was hired to landscape a new megachurch campus, and the…
The last week is not the time to learn the whole exam. It’s the time to sharpen what you already know, remove avoidable surprises and walk into the test center rested. Here’s how I’d spend it. 7 to 5 Days Out: Consolidate, Don’t Expand Resist the urge to open new textbooks. Go back to your…
When the contract says plaza and the client says parking lot Early in my career, I was hired to design a plaza for a college campus in Arizona. The client was the campus’s head of landscape architecture, a knowledgeable, well-respected person I wanted to impress. The scope was clear, the contract was signed, and design…