What Does a Landscape Architect Actually Do on a Commercial Project Team?

Of the four services involved in a typical development project, landscape architecture is the one people have the vaguest idea about. It's not just plant selection, and it's not the same job as the building architect or the civil engineer, even though it overlaps with both.

A landscape architect designs everything about a site that isn't the building itself but still shapes how people experience it: walkways and circulation, outdoor gathering spaces, plantings, lighting, seating, screening, and how all of that connects the building to the parking lot, the street, and neighboring properties. On a multifamily or commercial project, that design work directly affects how a space feels to a resident, tenant, or visitor, which is a real factor in leasing and retention, not just curb appeal.

The role also sits at a genuine intersection with civil engineering. Grading has to work for both stormwater performance and for how a space actually gets used, a rain garden or bioretention area can meet a regulatory requirement and still function as a courtyard feature, but only if the civil and landscape design are coordinated rather than handed off in sequence. The same goes for accessible routes, where grading, paving material, and slope all have to work together to meet ADA requirements without feeling like an afterthought.

Landscape architects also navigate a layer of city requirements that often surprises first-time developers: most municipalities have their own landscaping ordinances, covering minimum plantings, tree replacement, and buffer requirements between different types of land use, and satisfying those is part of getting a site plan approved at all.

On projects where we handle both civil engineering and landscape architecture, this coordination happens from the first site plan rather than being reconciled later. For more on how that overlap works in practice, see how landscape design helps satisfy stormwater requirements.