Meet your new LI Chief Assessors

The LI is proud to continue to help our members through the process of gaining their professional registration to Technician (TMLI), Chartered (CMLI) and Fellowship (FLI). With the rollout of the LI’s competency framework well underway, the LI’s Education and Membership Committee agreed to increase our pool of Chief Assessors (previously known as Chief Examiners) to three, one now responsible for each grade of membership.

Each assessor has a deputy role for another grade of membership. These are voluntary roles that our members undertake, and for which we are really grateful. Each oversees both our Chartership syllabus route and our membership routes, which are mapped against our competency framework.

Volunteering for the LI as an Assessor is a fantastic way of giving back to your Institute, great CPD, and a really rewarding experience as you are helping others on their professional registration journey. If you are interested in hearing more, please email volunteers@landscapeinstitute.org.

Chief Fellowship Assessor

When did you become professionally registered?

I became chartered in 1983, three years after graduating from an enjoyable and enlightening five-year journey at Thames Polytechnic (now the University of Greenwich).

Why do you volunteer for the LI?

To support the profession I strongly believe in, and to make a positive contribution to an improved and sustainable world – a crucial consideration back in the 1970s!

Why do you think Fellowship (FLI) is important?

My father was a Fellow in his own field and I looked up to his achievements from a very early age – it was a proud day when I achieved my Fellowship of the Landscape Institute with him in the audience. It is an exceptional accolade in our profession, and I respect and cherish this attainment

What’s your top tip for success when applying for professional registration?

Look beyond the norm and consider the wider picture, and how you can contribute to such a crucial profession – reflect and innovate.

In your opinion, what makes for a good landscape?

A landscape that invigorates it’s audience while respecting nature, the environment and the planet.

What’s your favourite landscape?

Simplicity is key to the ultimate landscape – there are some many amazing and incredible landscapes, many of which are created by fellow professionals, from the unpretentious Diana Memorial Fountain to the formal landscape of Ham House. For my favourite landscape, I come back again and again to the romantic gardens of Sissinghurst [Kent].

Chief Chartership Assessor

When did you become professionally registered?

1992 CMLI; Examiner 1994; Chief Examiner 2009; FLI 2013.

Why do you volunteer for the LI?

To help people get through the process as I found it hard back in the day and so decided to take it on myself and contribute.

Why do you think CMLI is important?

So you can be registered and be a professional in life, which helps at work, and your status and mainly feeling part of something.

What’s your top tip for success when applying for professional registration?

Make your logs or submissions very clear and readable and not too long. Answer the question and be honest as they will ask you about it in the exam.

In your opinion, what makes for a good landscape?

One that is usable by people at all times and makes people happy.

What’s your favourite landscape?

In that context, Granary Square [London] which is used by so many people from everywhere but is quite basic, and also Handyside Gardens [London] due to the planting design.

Chief Fellowship Assessor

When did you become professionally registered?

1996

Why do you volunteer for the LI?

I believe that, as our representative body, the LI has a vital role to play in promoting and safeguarding what we do. I’ve been volunteering as a P2C assessor for around 15 years now. I feel privileged to be a part of a network of assessors that supports our future generations of Landscape Architects and Landscape Professionals.

Why do you think TMLI is important?

TMLI has been the first membership to use the new Landscape Competency Framework.

I see TMLI as an exciting new form of membership that opens the LI to a rich and professionally diverse pool such as GIS and landscape heritage specialists, ecologists, and architectural technicians.

What’s your top tip for success when applying for professional registration?

I like to share a five-point plan: reset your mind and space; choose your path and mentor; demystify your syllabus;  learning as a journey; and follow a realistic workplan.

In your opinion, what makes for a good landscape?

Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe described landscape architecture as ‘The Mother of all Arts’. By extension I think that what makes a good landscape is one that engages the soul, one that excites and one that triggers our primal instincts and our need for identity.

What’s your favourite landscape?

Being half Turkish and so perhaps, predictably, the dramatic landscape and seascape of Olu Deniz is spectacular. It compels me to pause, in awe. Its scale is immense, the light and the colours are arresting. Located in the Fethiye district of Muğla Province, on the Turquoise Coast of southwestern Turkey, at the conjunction point of the Aegean and Mediterranean sea, it is a biblical setting.

Naomi Taylor is Acting Commercial Director at the LI.