New York Botanical Garden, Bronx, NY

Connie Migliazzo (MLA ’13) spent her 2011 summer working as the landscape architecture intern at the New York Botanical Gardens under the Landscape and Grounds Project Manager, a liaison between the Horticulture and Capital Projects Departments. Day to day activity at the garden varied widely, as many projects required both office and field work. She spent much time shadowing her boss, learning the inner workings of project development, as well as being given her own personal projects.

There are many internal projects happening at the same time, but she was specifically involved in the new Native Plant Garden (set to open in May of 2013), the redesign of the Horticulture Operations Center, and the redesign of the Sweetgum Forest Trail. Her work involved anything from budgeting material costs to geolocating, staking, and stringing layouts in the field with surveying equipment. With the guidance of one of the landscape architects in the Capital Projects office, she calculated and designed several sets of stairs, ramps, and terraces in the Native Plant Garden, and subsequently laid them out in the field. In addition to the project management experience, she had the privilege of being surrounded by experts in the field of horticulture and of being in the expansive 250+ acres of the NYBG, expanding her knowledge of plant life and processes immensely. At the NYBG, she gained the invaluable experience of what it means to manage and build a project from the ground up. Being able to balance demands of contractors, designers, horticulturalists, and donors while still actively producing is a skill she witnessed this summer, and one she hopes to cultivate as her career develops.