page_title: Herbert R. Schaal
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Herbert R. Schaal / Career
caption_attribution_description: English: Botanical specimen in the San Francisco Botanical Garden, San Francisco, California, USA.
context_page_description: Herbert R. Schaal is an American landscape architect, educator, and firm leader notable for the broad range and diversity of his projects, including regional studies, national parks, corporate and university campuses, site planning, botanical gardens, downtowns, highways, cemeteries, and public and private gardens. Schaal is one of the first landscape architects to design children's gardens, beginning in the 1990s with Gateway Elementary, Gateway Middle, and Gateway Michael Elementary school grounds in St. Louis, Missouri, the Hershey Children's Garden at the Cleveland Botanical Gardens, and Red Butte Garden and Arboretum.
context_section_description: Schaal's first year of practice was for Kenneth R. Anderson Associates in California. In 1964, he moved to Raleigh, North Carolina to work for his former instructor, Richard Moore. Moore had become the chair of the landscape architecture department at North Carolina State University's School of Design and principal of his private practice office, Megatech.
  In 1966, Schaal accepted a full-time teaching position at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, where he earned a master's degree in landscape architecture four years later.  He taught design and graphics with an emphasis on using perspective drawing as part of the design process. He developed the “Proportional Method of Perspective Drawing,”  which was subsequently taught in American landscape architecture programs. This method is described in Nicholas Dines’ book, Landscape Perspective Drawing, where the author recounts a meeting over coffee with Schaal in the 1970s where Schaal “sketched a one-point perspective depth proportioning system on a table napkin that eliminated the need to project from a measured plan.”
  In 1970, Schaal joined the San Francisco office of Eckbo Dean Austin and Williams, later known as EDAW. His first project used geographic information system technology and an association with Jack Dangermond, founder of Esri, to site a power plant and transmission lines for the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) Davenport Project near Santa Cruz, California. This project established a new service for the firm which led to many large area siting studies. Schaal was then recognized as an authority on utility siting and later became an associate author of a text book on the subject.
  In 1974, desiring a more rural lifestyle for his family Schaal moved to Fort Collins, Colorado, where he acquired the High Meadows Ranch near Rocky Mountain National Park and established EDAW’s Rocky Mountain Office. As an EDAW principal, vice president, and board member for 18 years, he played a role in the firm's growth from 4 to 32 offices worldwide.
  In 1980, Schaal began providing planning and design services for the Denver Botanic Gardens, including the design of the Alpine Rock Garden, which was recognized by Garden Design Magazine as the “premier example of the art of rock gardening in North America” and national park projects including work for three of the most prestigious parks: Yellowstone National Park, Grand Canyon National Park and Yosemite National Park. During this period, Schaal also established and directed the EDAW Summer Student Program at his High Meadows Ranch, which for over 25 years, recruited promising landscape architecture students from universities to participate in real national and international projects with EDAW principals. The American Society of Landscape Architects recognized the importance of the program in 2000 with the Landscape Architecture Award of Excellence. Under Schaal's guidance EDAW’s Rocky Mountain Office grew to over 40 employees in various disciplines addressing a wide range of award-winning projects, including parks of all scales, zoos, botanical gardens, urban design, trails, waterfronts, highways and streetscapes, office parks, and environmental studies.
  Schaal stepped down from overseeing the office in 1988 and concentrated his efforts on sustainable planning and design of university campuses, public gardens, and private estates. During this period, he completed dozens of projects at Washington University in Saint Louis. Building on his experience with the Denver Botanic Gardens, he created master plans and designed gardens for over 20 botanical gardens and arboretums nationwide, including the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens. In the design of children’s environments, Schaal is credited with systematically including all five senses and applying Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences. Schaal has designed “over 20 unique children’s gardens across the country,” including at the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens, the first public children's garden to be Platinum certified by Leadership 
caption: General view - San Francisco Botanical Garden - DSC09831
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