Glenn LaRue Smith, ASLA is a landscape architect with a 35 year career in private, public, and academic practice. As Principal and Co-Founder of PUSH Studio, he explores the intersections of urbanism and art and employs the city as a cultural and artistic medium for practice.
What drew you to landscape architecture?
Because I had a passion for art and architecture in high school, I searched for professions that could offer elements of these two passions. Landscape architecture was an unknown to me until I researched it as a way to extricate myself from a rigid mechanical engineering major during my freshman year. Landscape architecture came to the rescue because of the art department course options and other creative options within a well-crafted liberal arts undergraduate education at Mississippi State University. The faculty and students were also welcoming, creating an immediate bond that made the transition from engineering to landscape architecture a rewarding experience. I found the plant identification courses within the horticulture department and the planting design courses the best art form for translating and directing my passion for landscape architecture. My graduate education at the University of Michigan was a point of departure that shifted my interest into urbanism as an art form, bridging architecture and landscape.
