Carl Smith is professor of landscape architecture at the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design, where he’s taught since 2008. He is a Fellow of the Landscape Institute and Chartered (licensed) landscape architect in the United Kingdom. He’s also a Chartered Geographer and a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. He has wide, international experience in the practice, teaching and research of landscape and urbanism, and is co-principal of Worth Design LLC, a landscape architecture and urban design office in Fayetteville. Smith has served as a visiting professor or critic at many design institutions domestically and internationally, while his scholarship has been recognized through appointments at the Dumbarton Oaks Research Center and Library at Harvard University, the British School at Athens and the American Academy in Rome. Smith is the co-editor of The Field, a peer-reviewed online journal from the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA). In addition to his primary role in the Fay Jones School, Smith is an adjunct professor of geosciences at the University of Arkansas, and he is the ArchiScape Visiting Professor of Architecture at the School of Architecture, University of Sheffield, UK (2020-2024).
How did you become interested in landscape architecture?
I have always been interested in environmental concerns and land-based sciences such as geology. I’d come to the end of my degree in environmental science and was thinking about what came next. I visited the career library at the University of Lancaster where I was studying and there was a book about next steps for someone with an environmental science degree, and it mentioned landscape architecture. I was vaguely aware of landscape architecture, but that book got me more interested and more informed about what landscape architecture was about. It was enlightening to find something that could combine my interest in environmental science with fine arts and design. I’d never dreamt that I could really combine the two.
What was your career path before moving into teaching?
After I left Lancaster, I took a year off. I worked in a bookstore, and then I won a scholarship from the Economic Social Research Council in the UK, which was a very highly competitive scholarship, to do my graduate work. After that, I went into practice. I worked in a landscape architecture and urban design office for several years and became a licensed architect. Then, I went back to school and got a doctorate in architectural studies in sustainable housing design, from the University of Sheffield.
I was working in Edinburgh, Scotland, and primarily working in landscape planning for windfarm development and urban planning. Then my father passed away, and I started looking for opportunities to do what I felt in my heart I wanted to do. I think that was what my dad would have wanted. I’m not very strong in languages, so I had to look in English-speaking countries. The University of Arkansas was looking for a visiting professor, so I moved here for one semester. It was almost like a trial run, kind of trying it out, seeing what Northwest Arkansas had to offer. Then I went back to Edinburgh, and I got a job offer from the University of Edinburgh. It was and is one of the top universities in the world, but I was ready to move. So, Arkansas won.
What about Northwest Arkansas brought you back?
The landscape is beautiful. But it was the character of the people in Fayetteville. At the time, the whole area was a little overlooked. I don’t think that’s true anymore, particularly in Northwest Arkansas. But I was coming from Scotland, and I didn’t have any cultural baggage, so I just accepted what Arkansas was. I didn’t have any presumptions about what it was about. I found the people to be extremely charming and the university to be extremely welcoming. But even with that, it was difficult to leave my home. I tend to be a very rational person, so moving across the world was a little bit out of character for me. I turned up with two bags, that’s it — no family and no friends. I don’t think I could do it now, but I was a very young man.
What is your favorite place on campus?
My office. It would probably be more interesting for me to say some secret hiding place somewhere on campus, but the truth is I love the energy of the school. My favorite place is in this room. My second favorite place would be in the studio with my students.
What is unique about landscape architecture as a discipline?
It affects people’s lives; it affects the health of the planet. Fundamentally, it’s about trying to weave culture and nature together. I would say a typical studio is not as linear as people think. You begin by looking at the site through research and analysis and then speaking to key stakeholders about the project. Then you take that information and you put it into the start of the project. There’s a lot of iteration and a lot of experimentation. Studios are incredibly creative places with a lot of energy. It’s a unique mixture of being intellectually engaged, but also culturally engaged.
It’s wonderful to see students create something out of what they’re given at the beginning of the semester. I encourage each student to find their voice in the design process and find something that resonates with them. Throughout the project, they’re creating iterations, they are experimenting, they’re talking, they’re listening, they’re drawing — and all those things are quite magical.
Landscape architects have to be aware of the living, dynamic and changing nature of the world. It has a character and personality. It’s very important that we try and recognize that and work with it and try not to impose something that is fundamentally alien into that place.
What is an accomplishment you’re proud of?
Working with students in a variety of settings. I’ve worked with students from the EMPOWER initiative on campus. EMPOWER works with people with developmental challenges on campus to experience the world as an independent student. I take a great deal of satisfaction from helping those students. I also take a great deal of satisfaction from regularly placing our design students into UK internships. It’s perhaps a little bit obvious, but it’s one thing that I can bring to the school because of who I am.
But facilitating opportunities for any student is important to me. That might be an opportunity to learn about a new career, an opportunity to learn how to express themselves creatively, allow them to learn about the environment, and help them learn how to become a good student. To me, succeeding there transcends all the awards. It’s nice getting letters, notes or emails from students letting me know that I make a difference. Just one note, one postcard, can really make my semester. I keep them all.
What is the most difficult part of your job?
Again, I would say working with students. It’s complicated and dynamic. I can’t help but feel slightly disappointed when I’m not able to make a difference with a student. It doesn’t happen very often; most students have to have some sort of steel to come into design school. They need quite a lot of fortitude and energy. But if I feel like I let a student down if I have not gotten the best out of them; that’s the most difficult.
You have been teaching here for 15 years; how have students changed over the years?
There have been some changes, but mostly they have been more superficial. One positive change has been the confidence within the landscape architecture program.
Our students are ready and able to work in some of the best practices in the world and stand toe-to-toe with graduates from any program in the U.S. The work they do is exceptional. We are outperforming most of our peers, regionally in the central states. And in terms of accomplishments, the students are winning positions across the U.S. and overseas. So maybe that’s been a change — students in the landscape architecture department are becoming more aware of their quality.
Is there anything you wish students knew about you?
I’m pretty open with the students. I’ve found that to work best in the studio, you have to bring your whole authentic self to the studio, not just your intellectual self. Your sense of humor, your anxieties, your hopes — you have to be fairly authentic about that. At some point, the real you comes out.
But that authenticity might trip up students at the beginning. It comes down to instinct, and students, especially younger ones, haven’t developed a huge amount of design instinct. In some ways, they’re almost set up to struggle. As a professor, I have to be there to support and encourage them. By the time students are in their last year of school, they usually know more about the project than you do, they’ve developed a design voice, and so my role really is morphed from teacher to mentor.
If you were not in your current position, what would you want to be doing?
I feel like I’ve won the lottery. I’m doing what I want to do. For anything else to interest me it would have to be something creative, something with people, and something that I’m really passionate about. All of those components lend themselves to being a professor of landscape architecture at the University of Arkansas. Maybe my retirement plan will be to open a small record shop. But to be serious, I think if I wasn’t doing my current job, it’d be very difficult for me to pinpoint what I’d want to be doing.