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If there’s one thing that Lisa Geyelin learned after completing an English Literature undergraduate degree in 1997 it’s that such a degree rarely lets you get your hands dirty.
For most people, that wouldn’t be a problem. For someone literally born into the green industry, however, being stuck indoors all of the time is akin to leaving a flower without sunlight — little chance to truly blossom.
“After I finished my English and Studio Art degree (at the University of Virginia) I began working with my mom in her landscaping business, Susan’s Gardening Etc.,” said Geyelin, 29. “I decided after I left school that more than anything I enjoyed working outside. I came to Temple to take a few horticulture classes with the intention of taking what I learned in the classroom and bringing it to the business. In my third year, I took a graphic communications class and liked it.”
That led Lisa to take a Landscape Architecture studio course, which in turn led to a completely new branch in her career path.
“I switched my focus to landscape architecture and began taking classes full-time. I spent four years part-time while working full-time helping to expand the family business,” she said. “I think my experiences — my art background, working on residential designs with my mom, the horticulture courses — layer on top of each other. I saw a lot of potential in going in a design direction.”
Lisa is no stranger to putting in long hours to get a job done.
“I like to think of our landscape business as a ‘large/small’ business. We have about 250 clients and employ six to 10 people; more during the summer,” she said. “I was out there doing the planting, working every day with the crew and designing at night or on the side. I had a friend in the horticulture program at Temple who got me excited about coming here. I knew they had a good horticulture program and I needed to keep working so the fact that Temple offered night classes certainly helped.”
The practical and applicable knowledge that she took from her horticulture courses into the landscape architecture program has also been a bonus, Lisa said.
“Having the horticulture background, having that experience working with the plants, has certainly been an advantage. I think it — and landscape architecture too — opens up the world to you,” she said. “I feel ready to go out and work with plants with a solid background in ecology and restoration. Here the real strength is teaching science, ecology, and the practical side of the profession and how we will go about conveying our ideas.”
Lisa’s ideas and designs worked as a solid foundation for a dedicated team of landscape architecture and horticulture students to develop an award-winning exhibit for the 2004 Philadelphia Flower Show entitled “Riparian Restoration.” The exhibit won the Special Achievement Award in Conservation from the Garden Club Federation of Pennsylvania for an “exhibit of unusual excellence” in conservation, education, and horticulture.
The “Riparian Restoration” exhibit visually demonstrated how plants can be used as an excellent, and aesthetic, buffer for water that drains into our essential freshwater resources — from backyard creeks to parkland stream corridors — and how these concepts may be incorporated with environmental protection.
“It’s very fast paced, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants teamwork and its excellent practical experience. You have an incredible sense of accomplishment in what you’ve been able to present as a group,” Lisa said. “The exhibit is hardly there for a week and then its gone, but hundreds of thousands of people come through it and they want to learn about it.”
The environmental emphasis that is underlying throughout the landscape architecture and horticulture programs at Ambler “is incredibly important.”
“We have to plan for the future. Every landscape architect, every architect, needs to look at the impact their projects will have on the environment,” she said. “My goal as a professional is to eventually work at a 20- to 50-person firm and work on large public spaces.”
In the meantime, however, Lisa still has classes to contend with before she’s fitted for a cap and gown. For the fall semester, that means courses in Geology, Landscape Restoration, American Landscape Traditions, and the Landscape Architecture Senior Design Studio.
“For the first few weeks in Geology, we studied plate tectonics, matter and minerals, and the periodic table. Next up is identifying minerals in the lab,” Lisa said. “In Landscape Restoration, we have been talking about why restoration is needed. In some respects it goes against the natural order of things since the world is constantly evolving — it gets to the heart of what it means to restore a landscape.”
In American Landscape Traditions, the past informs the present and future with explorations of Native American and Colonial landscapes. Meanwhile, in the Senior Studio Lisa had a bit of a puzzle to figure out — how to get people from a landing dock to a house, the Villa Malaparte, built into the Italian cliffs 80 feet above.
“Our major project this year is to develop a design for the Schuylkill riverfront between the Art Museum and South Street. It’s a real world project that presents a lot of challenges, a lot of mixed uses to consider,” Lisa said. “It makes financial sense not to develop a plan that will be detrimental to the environment, that will not impact water quality.”
Lisa also plans to take part in the Landscape Architecture study abroad program at Heriot-Watt University/Edinburgh College of Art in Scotland during the Spring 2005 semester.
“Part of the reason that I wanted to take part in it is that it is a six-month program,” she said. “It gives me the opportunity to travel, which I think is important for any designer.”
Outside of the classroom, Lisa is a member of the Landscape Architecture and Horticulture Student Association. She continues to work for her mother part time while also developing designs on her own, about 15 or so a year.
“It’s a balancing act. One week the focus might be on studio, the next it might be on other classes — you juggle it all to the best of your ability,” she said. “It’s a lot of work and a lot of time. You have to feel passionately about what you are doing, but I can’t imagine doing anything else.”
This is the first part of an "A Year in the Life” series featuring Lisa Geyelin. Lisa, who lives in Wayne, received a B.S. degree in Landscape Architecture in 2005.
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