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Of the several environmental design professions, landscape architecture is the one most concerned with the wise use of the outdoor environment. It attempts to fit human outdoor activities into the natural or the built environment so that those activities function efficiently, have high visual quality and will have minimal impact on natural systems. Together with planners, architects, and civil engineers, landscape architects plan and design the myriad of elements that make up our cities and towns.

The profession of landscape architecture in this country began with the work of Frederick Law Olmsted. Mr. Olmsted, who was active in his profession from the mid 1850s to the mid 1890s, was involved with the full range of effort implied above. Today, because our civilization is more complex, many landscape architects tend to focus on one or more aspects of the profession such as: urban, rural, small scale, large scale, design, planning, construction supervision, or combinations thereof. A tremendous diversity of effort is required in the profession.