Nurtured by Nature

Ted Baker, Landscape Architect, Grows Up Loving Stone

By K. K. Snyder

Ted Baker admittedly has been romancing stone since he was a child, even referring to the natural material as his "mistress." But what this renowned South Florida landscape architect does with stone is not hidden behind closed doors like some kind of geological secret; the results of this love affair are magnificent — and out in the open for all to enjoy.

Baker, 67, started working at his father's landscaping and nursery business when he was only 10 years old. Making a whopping 10 cents an hour, he soon developed an interest in working with natural materials, watching his father create with stone on various landscaping and garden sites.

Baker recalls family trips in the 1950s to Hickory Run State Park, where he spent hours on a boulder field, a moraine from a glacier that oozed into Pennsylvania hundreds of thousands of years ago. "I remember standing in a huge field with beautifully rounded stones," he says of the field that was being studied by archeologists and geologists. "That was an awesome experience. I loved looking at how stone was used in that particular park and others we visited; stone became really cool."

Florida Sees the (Green) Light While the use of stone may be as old as time, it has taken on a new respect in light of recent green building recommendations as a natural product lending itself well to energy management efforts, says landscape architect Ted Baker. The green building movement in Florida has seen stone help with water retention solutions on rooftop gardens, reducing energy loss in buildings. This is a huge plus in locations where land is at a premium. "Those types of materials, those byproducts of stone, might have significant applications in some of the green building processes," Baker says. Those byproducts range from gravel and crushed stone to decomposed granite and stone chips, all of which are used ornamentally, especially in places such as Arizona and New Mexico, Baker says. The materials are also used in green efforts such as controlling erosion in landscapes. Exploding mica, schist and other soft stones makes them good material for insulation, adds Baker, sharing another green use for stone. "Stone doesn't decompose quickly, so it has good properties of insulation," he says.

By the late '50s, Baker was bored to tears with the liberal arts path he had chosen in college. "There had been some talking about this thing called 'landscape architecture,'" recalls Baker of the then-new field. "If you think professionals struggle for recognition today, you can imagine what it was like back then when it was brand new."

With an interest in art and a love for plants, Baker left a $48 an hour job in banking and went to California to complete undergraduate studies in landscape architecture at Cal Poly at Pomona. The warm weather and an opportunity to play college football were both factors in that decision. Following graduation, he returned to New Jersey, but soon tired of the cold weather.

In 1968, Baker made South Florida his new home and has since led his company, Ted Baker Landscape Architecture, in the completion of a range of projects, including residences and estates, recreational facilities, mixed-use, commercial and retail sites, office buildings and office parks, streetscape and community enhancements, roadway beautification, and multi-family housing, for which he has garnered dozens of awards.

For 13 years Baker shared his knowledge and talent with up and coming landscape architects through his role as an instructor in the graduate landscape architecture program at Florida International University, where he received his own graduate education in the field. In addition, Baker completed graduate studies in landscape planning and ecology at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University.

Baker believes the industry has changed through the years, noting that the once exclusive American Society of Landscape Architects now appears to accept a wide range of members, a lenience Baker recognized while serving on a committee established by the society itself to gather feedback. "You used to have to complete an apprenticeship before becoming a member," he bemoans. "Today you can be a paver manufacturer and become a member."

Baker is also concerned that creativity in his profession in being stifled, noting that corporate compliance does not lend itself to the creative juices necessary to succeed in this line of work. "It's become a boutique. Architectural landscaping firms have a hard time surviving. The profession has become very corporatized, with management versus staff. That particular change does not bode well for such a creative profession.

"I think of landscape architecture more along the lines of a sculptor or painter," he continues. "When you saddle the creative energy of people with the stifling structure of a corporation, it creates a problem in my view. A lot of firms are headed in that direction; becoming more of a business and losing the panache, the romance, the passion. I understand the reasons for that, but I don't think it's good for them."

Many of today's landscape designs, especially in Baker's area of the country, are more "slick" than those he oversees, Baker says. He contends that the results are as glaring as the difference between stainless steel and gravel. He encourages others to explore beyond the design parameters they are used to working within, beyond those materials considered "safe." Instead he encourages pushing the envelope and creating "gutsy" designs by incorporating natural stone products.

Pay It Forward Landscape architect Ted Baker, a veteran in the industry, voices concern about the modern-day landscape architecture atmosphere. "Not enough [landscape architects] go out and serve their community," says Baker, who undertakes a pro bono design project each year for a non-profit group. The annual project is selected based on need and community impact. "They all want to make money and don't want to do community service, like working with the Boy Scouts on a landscape project or speaking to students or other groups about the importance of landscape design." Baker, whose parents were very active in their community, has handed that same philosophy down to his own children. "That's the way I was raised... it was a model I saw in their actions. It was a respect I was taught to have." A Ronald McDonald House near Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami was Baker's first pro bono project. Another was a master landscape plan for the revitalization of an inner city facility in a particularly depressed area of Miami. Baker has also given of his landscape design talents to a number of Habitat for Humanity projects. "Some people are not able to afford to hire a landscape architect," he says. "The question becomes what responsibility do we have to our peers?"

Baker believes most landscape architects tend to rely on a vocabulary of materials that they've consistently used over time. "We're all creatures of habit and find things that we like," he says. "I think there are standards people subscribe to that, to me, might be contradictory to cutting-edge or gutsy designs."

What about new materials? What are the new kinds of stone being quarried? What are new ways stone can be used? Baker puts these questions forth to make his point, encouraging landscape designers and architects to think outside the box.

"There are a lot of different ways of using materials to express ideas about a place that can be pretty intriguing and gutsy in a way," says Baker, recalling the old stone walls in the Harvard Forest on that university's campus — walls that were present before the school, when the area was used for farming. "People need to express and explore... more than they do."

Baker's romance with natural stone is evident in nearly every project he touches. "There's no façade to [natural stone]. It's natural and doesn't put on airs. It is what it is, with all its colors, textures and visual qualities that lend themselves to beautiful walls, steps and seat walls. I'll continue to use natural stone because of these many qualities."

K.K. Snyder is a freelancer writer and editor based in Albany, Ga. She can be reached at kkondeadline@hotmail.com.

Resource
Ted Baker Landscape Architecture
Miami, Fla.
305-279-6359
www.tedbakerlandscapearchitecture.com

• Return to table of contents

www.buildingstonemagazine.com

Building Stone Magazine
©2008 by Building Stone Institute
www.buildingstoneinstitute.org
All rights reserved

Web Site by:
Lionheart Publishing, Inc.
506 Roswell Street, Suite 220, Marietta, GA 30060
Phone: 770-431-0867 | Fax: 770-432-6969
lpi@lionhrtpub.com
www.lionhrtpub.com