Same experience in landscape design.
But completely different rules.
When I moved from Connecticut to Melbourne as a landscape designer, I expected to learn new plants and adjust to a different climate.
What I didn't expect was how quickly my design instincts needed recalibrating.
Not wrong — just built for somewhere else.
Connecticut meant predictable seasons, reliable rainfall, familiar hardscape and softscape palettes.
Melbourne is variability, water sensitivity, and native resilience.
The fundamentals didn't change.
But how they show up in practice did.
Over the next few posts, I'll share what designing across these two contexts has taught me — starting with something that seems universal, but isn't: Seasons.
For architects and designers — what's one instinct that didn't translate when you worked in a different environment?