IN THIS GUIDE · Separating professional landscape architecture duties from construction management in a contract covering both design and site supervision
Start with the TN eligibility and application overview
Break the contract into professional and non-professional activity
Read the scope of work item by item and sort it. Design development, planting and grading plans, specifications, review of submittals and observation of the work for conformance with the design are professional activities. Scheduling trades, running crews, procuring materials or performing installation are not. Once the list is sorted, the balance is visible, and the employer can describe the role accurately instead of relying on the contract title. Do the sort in writing, on a copy of the agreement, marking each numbered item P or NP and noting the hours or the fee weighting attached to it. A scope that reads as ninety percent design with a short observation phase is a different document from one where the fee is concentrated in the build months. Where an item genuinely covers both, split it into its parts rather than assigning it whole.
Describe site work in professional terms
Supervision means different things in design practice and in construction. Where the applicant visits the site to observe progress, review conformance with the drawings, respond to contractor questions and certify work for payment, that is contract administration performed by the design professional. Where the applicant directs the contractor's workforce day to day, the role has moved. The letter should use whichever description is true, in the employer's own words. Hypothetical example: a landscape architect signs a single agreement covering planting design and forty site visits across a two-season installation. Asked what happens on those visits, the firm answers that the applicant checks plant stock against the specification, marks tree locations with the contractor and signs off completed areas. That answer describes contract administration on the design side; had the answer been that the applicant sets the crew's weekly sequence, the description in the letter would have to change with it.
Check the credential route in the listing
The Landscape Architect entry lists a baccalaureate or licenciatura degree; it does not list the state/provincial licence alternative available to Architect. Establish the required degree and have any foreign credential evaluation requirement checked for the actual record. Separately confirm destination practice permission. A licence may matter for practice without replacing the degree required by this TN entry. Order the credential evaluation early where one is required, since an assessment of foreign titles can take longer than the rest of the preparation and cannot be compressed at the last moment. Keep the transcript, the degree parchment and the evaluation together, and check whether the degree title on the parchment matches the wording of the entry, because a variant title is the point most often queried.
Confirm who the client is and how the work is contracted
A contract rather than an offer letter is not itself a problem, but the structure matters. Sole or controlling ownership of the United States entity the professional supplies services to is treated as prohibited self-employment, and adding independent supervision does not cure controlling ownership. Where the applicant holds any equity, or where the arrangement runs through an intermediary, put the full structure in front of counsel before proceeding. Ask for the corporate record rather than an assurance: the certificate of formation, the current member or shareholder register, and any operating agreement naming who controls the entity. Where a design firm intends to place the applicant with a developer, the placement agreement belongs in the picture too. Counsel needs the structure as it stands on the day of the request, not as it is expected to look later.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.