Landscape Architecture Merit Badge

Start the badge the right way Milestone

Meet your unit leader, get a counselor and a signed blue card before working with them. That process is the same for every badge and is set out on its own page.

Work to the requirements in force when you start Document

These requirements are republished yearly. A Scout who has already begun may finish under the ones they started with.

Usually comes after Start the badge the right way.

Merit badge requirements are republished annually. A Scout beginning work uses the requirements as they stand then; a Scout already working may finish under the ones they started with. Guide to Advancement 7.0.4.3 governs which applies. This page records the date its copy was read. Check it against the official page before relying on it.

1. Visit a landscape project, with its plan if you can get one Often forgotten Requirement

TWO SEARCHES IN ONE SENTENCE, AND ONLY ONE OF THEM IS THE VISIT. Finding a site that qualifies is research. Getting the drawing is a request made to a stranger, and the requirement wants it in your hands BEFORE you go rather than afterwards. That is why this requirement is opened in week one and closed much later.

Usually comes after Work to the requirements in force when you start.

ASK FOR THE PLAN IN THE FIRST WEEK, BECAUSE "IF ONE IS AVAILABLE" IS AN ANSWER SOMEBODY ELSE HAS TO GIVE YOU. There are two searches in this requirement. The first is a completed project you can be sure a landscape architect designed: a public park built or renovated in the last thirty years, a botanical garden, a college or corporate campus, a city plaza or waterfront, a hospital courtyard, a zoo or a cemetery. Large public projects almost always had one and almost always credit them, on a plaque, a donor board, the park web page, or at the parks department that commissioned it. The second is the plan, which the requirement wants BEFORE the visit. Ask the firm or the parks department; a plan is often already a PDF and firms are usually glad to hear from a Scout. GO WITH IT IN YOUR HAND IF YOU CAN, because requirement 2 asks about spaces, entries, paths and shade, and those are things a designer drew deliberately and a visitor notices by accident.

2. Four questions about the site you visited Requirement

All four are required and all four are about requirement 1's site, which is why this requirement opens by naming it. Nothing here can be looked up afterwards: every one of the four answers is an observation, and the only place to make it is standing on the ground somebody designed.

2(a). Spaces, entry, paths, sun and shade Task

Four separate observations, and all four are things the designer decided on purpose. Was the site divided into distinct areas, was there one obvious way in, could you tell where you were meant to walk, and was there a choice of sun or shade. The design plan from requirement 1 shows the intention behind all four.

2(b). How the built things suited the design Task

Structures, and the seating, eating and parking areas. The question is whether they suited the OVERALL DESIGN, so the answer is about fit rather than about quality: whether the parking was pushed to the edge or left in the middle of the view, whether the seating faced anything worth facing, whether a shelter belonged to the place or was dropped into it.

2(c). Comfort, shelter and security of the users Often forgotten Task

THREE IDEAS, AND THE THIRD IS THE ONE PEOPLE SKIP. Comfort is whether it is pleasant to stay in, shelter is sun, wind and rain, and security is whether a person standing there feels safe: sight lines, lighting, and whether you can see who else is present. Answer all three separately.

2(d). What the planting contributed Task

Trees, shrubs and ground covers, and the requirement asks about APPEAL AND FUNCTION, which is two answers. Function is the useful half and the half that gets left out: shade, screening, marking a route, softening a wall, holding a slope, keeping people off a corner.

3. Eleven plants, and two answers about each Often forgotten Requirement

Five shrubs, five trees and one ground cover, differing in shape, size and texture, all able to grow where you live, each with a picture or a cutting, each with a use in a design AND the maintenance that follows. NEEDS TWO ARRANGEMENTS: your counselor or a local nursery to help choose, and a group to bring the results to.

ONE PARAGRAPH, ELEVEN PLANTS, TWENTY TWO ANSWERS. Five shrubs, five trees and one ground cover, and the eleven together must show DIFFERENT shapes, sizes and textures, so eleven similar things is not an answer. Each one needs a picture or a cutting of branch, leaf or flower, and then two things said about it: how you would USE it in a design, and the MAINTENANCE that would follow. Those two are per plant and they are the two that get left out. Use means the job it does: screening a fence, shading a bench, marking an entrance, holding a bank. Maintenance means what it costs every year: pruning, watering, leaf fall, and how big it eventually gets. GO TO A LOCAL NURSERY RATHER THAN A SEARCH ENGINE, because the eleven have to grow where you live and a nursery only stocks what does. Ask them for a spread of shapes and sizes and the hardest condition in the requirement is met by the person helping you.

4. Study a real site, with permission first Often forgotten Requirement

Three sites are offered and any one of them satisfies the badge equally: a place of worship, school grounds, or a public building. Two things have to happen before the measuring starts. Somebody in authority has to agree, and you have to work out where most people arrive by bus or car, because those are the people 4(c) gets redesigned for.

THE FIRST WORDS OF THIS REQUIREMENT ARE A PERMISSION, AND IT IS NOT ALWAYS QUICK. You are proposing to stand on somebody's grounds with a measuring tape, measuring the driveway and the path to the main entrance, so the appropriate authority is a parish office, a principal, or a facilities manager, and a few of those will take it to a committee. CHOOSE THE SITE BY WHO ALREADY KNOWS YOU. Your own school or your own place of worship turns a cold request into a conversation, and all three offered sites are worth the same to the badge. START THIS REQUIREMENT EARLY FOR A SECOND REASON: 4(b) asks where water stands after rain, which you cannot see on a dry day, so the more weeks this requirement is open the better the chance of being there after a downpour. Note also the last clause of the opening: you must identify where most people arrive by bus or car, and those are the people 4(c) is redesigned for.

4(a). Measure it, draw it to scale, then copy it twice Often forgotten Task

A measuring tape is required kit and the scale must be stated. Everything in the study area goes on it, including drains and utilities. THEN MAKE TWO COPIES AND SAVE THE ORIGINAL BEFORE YOU MARK ANYTHING, because 4(b) and 4(c) are each done on a copy and a marked original cannot be unmarked.

MAKE THE TWO COPIES BEFORE YOU MARK ANYTHING. The requirement says to make two copies of the plan and save the original, then do 4(b) and 4(c) using the copies, and it says it at the end of a long sentence about what to draw. A Scout who finishes the drawing and starts putting drainage arrows on it has destroyed the original and has one sheet where the badge asks for three. Draw it, then scan or photograph it, then print two, then put the original away. THE DRAWING IS TO SCALE AND THE SCALE HAS TO BE STATED, so a measuring tape is required kit rather than a suggestion. What must appear: the driveway, the sidewalk or path to the main entry, and then any sidewalks, structures, trees and plants, lights, drains, utilities or other site furnishings in the study area. Drains and utilities are the two people forget, and they are exactly what 4(b) is about, so walk the site once looking for nothing else.

5. Careers, and one of them researched in eight parts Requirement

Three careers identified, one of them chosen, eight separate things researched about that one, and then a discussion with your counselor about whether it interests you. Longer than the careers requirement on most badges and considerably more concrete, because this is a licensed profession with a real degree, a real examination and a real board behind it.

4(b). Drainage, on the first copy Often forgotten Task

Done on the first of the two copies made in 4(a). Three things get marked: which way the water runs, where the ditches are, and where it sits instead of draining away. The first two can be surveyed on any dry afternoon. The third is the only answer on this badge that has to wait for weather.

Usually comes after 4(a). Measure it, draw it to scale, then copy it twice.

THE HARDEST PART OF THIS REQUIREMENT IS NOT VISIBLE ON THE DAY YOU DO IT. Slope you can see and ditches you can see, but WHERE WATER STANDS FOR A LONGER PERIOD only shows itself when it has rained. Three honest ways to get that answer. Go back to the site after heavy rain, which is the best answer and the reason to open requirement 4 early. Ask somebody who is there every day, because a custodian, a groundskeeper or a sexton knows exactly where the puddle sits and will usually walk you to it. Or read the marks water leaves behind: moss, silt lines, worn or bare grass, sunken paving, algae on concrete, and a change in what grows. Whatever you do, do not guess from the contours alone, because standing water is usually caused by something that is not slope, such as compacted ground, a blocked drain or a kerb in the wrong place, and finding that thing is what makes 4(c) worth writing.

4(c). Redesign it, on the second copy Task

Done on the second copy, and the brief is SAFER AND MORE COMFORTABLE rather than prettier. It is the only piece of design work on the badge, and it is the one place where the rest of it pays off: the drainage you mapped in 4(b) and the eleven plants you identified in requirement 3 are both answers waiting to be used.

Counselor signs it off Milestone

The completion date is the date you met the requirements, not the date of the signature.

Usually comes after 5. Careers, and one of them researched in eight parts.