One of the larger projects that alumnus Zach Jordan contributed to is the Bridgeview development project, a residential community situated on the Schuylkill River. According to Langan, this project is part of a larger goal to revitalize the aging industrial surrounding area.

Designing a landscape architecture career

Article by Nya Wynn Photos courtesy of Zach Jordan July 01, 2024

UD degree prepares alumnus Zach Jordan for career combining science, art and problem-solving

A decade ago when Zach Jordan was a first-year student at the University of Delaware, he was certain he wanted to be an engineer. But after discovering the creative rush of landscape architecture, he switched his major and never looked back.

“I’ve always liked building and creating stuff, and to some extent, some of the engineering professions are more limiting in how creative you can get with something,” said Jordan, who is now a senior staff landscape architect at Langan, a land development, engineering and environmental consulting firm with locations worldwide. “Landscape architecture is a good opportunity to do both [engineering and architecture] and create more.”

Jordan is far from the only college student to unearth this beloved major and profession well after high school.

“A lot of people enter engineering because they’re good in science and math, but they want to create things,” said Susan Barton, professor and extension specialist of ornamental horticulture. “But if they get into engineering, and they say ‘this is boring,’ or ‘I don't enjoy this math,’ finding landscape architecture is kind of like a lightbulb going off for them.”

Like Jordan, these students apply math and engineering to thrive as landscape architects. From going out to do field work, to managing a team of architects or designers, Jordan experiences it all. The job’s day-to-day flexibility is something that the 2018 alumnus truly appreciates.

Jordan’s team at Langan designed various projects for residential and urban spots in Journal Square in Jersey City, New Jersey.

“We do anything from planting design to designing stormwater management systems, getting out in the field, and then some more managerial tasks every once and a while,” Jordan said.

UD’s landscape architecture major launched in 2016, and Jordan was one of its first graduates.

“When I switched to landscape architecture, they were just starting it off as a major. I received so much hands-on time with our professors,” Jordan said.

One professor that truly stuck out to Jordan was Carmine Balascio, now a retired faculty member in the Department of Plant and Soil Sciences. One of Jordan’s greatest takeaways from Balascio was that careers in landscape architecture go deeper than what most would originally believe. Many positions that many alumni hold are an amalgamation of land development, civil engineering and landscape architecture.

Led by Eric Bardenhagen, Zachary Hammaker, Anna Wik and Barton, the current faculty continue to instill this interdisciplinary mindset in their UD students.

“One of the things that’s fun about landscape architecture is it truly combines art and science,” Barton said. “You look at a blank slate or an existing landscape and say, ‘What could this become?’ And so that’s the design, the creativity part, but you're also working with living things, the science of what is actually going to work on this site.”

A large part of Jordan’s day-to-day is working with modeling systems to visualize how designs will impact an area and what they can do to help make their projects go seamlessly.

One of Jordan’s recent projects, a large residential development, is currently under construction in Bridgeport, Pennsylvania. Barring many technical issues and after fixing the existing infrastructure, Jordan and his team were able to get the design off the ground.

“It was a big project and also was sort of my introduction to something much more complicated where I worked on both the civil and landscape architecture side,” Jordan said.

The project, which is expected to be completed in the summer of 2025, will have apartments, townhomes and multiple commercial spaces.

“Seeing the impact that your designs can make on the world is really rewarding,” Jordan said. “To see something that you thought up, drew, composed and spent all this time working on actually getting constructed because of something I put down on paper is amazing.”