BSLA Fieldbook BSLA 2015 Spring Fieldbook | Page 49

former professor of mine from the GSD,
to learn more, and commiserated about
why isn’t there a publication about
phytoremediation geared to a design
audience. By the end of a few conversations,
he suggested “Why don’t we write one?”
I was shocked and excited all at once. I
didn’t consider myself a writer, but I did
love learning. How would we go about this?
What would we do first? I thought that
writing a book came first, and then we’d
shop it out to publishers; after speaking
to Niall, I realized our approach would be

S o t e n ye ars ag o,
wh e n I h e ard ab ou t
th e s e “ f re ak i s h” p lant s
th at c ou ld e rad i c at e
env i ron m e nt al
pollu t ant s , of c ou rs e I
was all i n .
different. We’d first see if any publishers
were interested in the idea, THEN get a
contract, THEN write. Oh, that makes sense.
This way we wouldn’t waste any time.
So we sent proposals out and waited to hear
back. Several publishers were interested and
we picked one. Research commenced, and
since Offshoots was my regular full time
job, I disappeared from my husband and
my social life for nights and weekends over
the next six months. My husband stopped
asking when I would be done with work,
and just assumed one work day would roll
into the next.
I squirreled myself away in the library
stacks, voraciously reading everything I
could about phyto. What does this all mean?
Which plants CAN I use? Many of the
journal articles were contradictory. Not sure

Started Out
Education
Now

which articles to highlight, I started calling
the scientists that wrote the articles.
What a great idea! I couldn’t believe these
scientists had time to talk to me. In the
amount of time it took me to walk to the
library, I was getting 20 years of scientific
research summed up in a 10 minute skype
call. What I quickly realized is that most
academic scientists were excited that
someone would potentially take their
findings—buried in research laboratories
and journal articles—and apply the
concepts. This was much different than
my experience with engineering and
remediation consultants who had no time
for educating me and wanted to be paid with
a lucrative project. With the scientists, we’d
chat, they would forward their published
journal articles, and with their explanation,
I would understand detailed concepts.
Afterwards, I would create a graphic
diagram for what I’d just learned. What a
breakthrough! I became friends with several
of the scientists and scheduled my vacations
around side-trips to visit their projects at
waste water treatment facilities and former
mines. My husband, of course, was “thrilled.”
I’m excited by this new way for landscape
architects to engage. Instead of solely
attending our own design conferences
where research is presented to us, we can
head directly to the scientists to gather
knowledge. The research method is similar
to our profession’s more recent engagement
directly with ecologists. We seek out the
scientists instead of waiting for the research
to filter to us through media and other
specialist professionals.
The light at the end of the manuscript is
now just ahead. The book is scheduled to be
published in 2015, and I look forward to my
next extracurricular project that will almost
definitely fill all my newly found free time.

Paxton, MA
BLA, Cornell University; MLA, Harvard Graduate School of Design
Offshoots, Inc
Boston Society of Landscape Architects Fieldbook

47