About the Department

The Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning at the University of Massachusetts Amherst was founded by Frank A. Waugh in 1903 as an undergraduate program in Landscape Gardening, the second such program in the United States. In the 100 plus years since then, the Department has grown substantially, changed its name, and developed a number of distinct instructional programs:

• Bachelor of Science in Landscape Architecture
• Bachelor of Science in Sustainable Community Development Master in Landscape Architecture
• Master in Regional Planning
• Dual Masters Degree Options
• PhD in Regional Planning

The total enrollment in the department averages over 250 students, while the average size of the undergraduate Landscape Architecture class is typically 90 students total with approximately 25 students per class level. Currently, the department comprises 18 full-time faculty and four support staff. Visiting and adjunct faculty augment the core faculty. As practicing landscape architects, designers, and planners, these faculty enrich the studios and courses they teach with their professional experience and knowledge.

The common goal of all programs in the department is to encourage the sustainable use of land and natural resources. We focus on anticipating and resolving conflicts between the physical, economic, and social needs of human beings and vital natural systems. As designers and as planners, we have a special concern for aesthetics and for the psychological dimensions of the designed environment.

Although the landscape architecture and regional planning programs have unique perspectives and draw on discipline- specific bodies of knowledge, approaches, and techniques, the line between the two disciplines is by no means sharply drawn in the department. Design, whether of land or buildings, is the conscious ordering of physical objects and events in three- dimensional space to further human purposes, to fulfill human needs, wants, and desires. Planning is the systematic analysis and resolution of the physical, economic, and social problems of towns, cities and regions. Planning often provides a framework for the design of the physical landscape.

As a practical matter, all designers must plan, and all planners must design. The programs and curricula of the department attempt to promote the fullest possible interchange between these closely related, but often distinct, points of view.

Affiliated Centers and Programs 

Students in the department benefit directly and indirectly from a number of affiliated centers and programs:

UMass Design Center in Springfield

supports a wide range of planning and urban design projects and research focused on addressing the challenges facing cities and towns in Massachusetts and beyond. Based in Springfield, the Design Center strives to achieve these important objectives: initiate projects that will support the revitalization of cities and towns in innovative ways, strengthen the connection between the university and Massachusetts cities and towns, and provide students with a range of learning opportunities including community outreach, urban design and city planning. The Design Center continues the University’s historical “land grant” mission to leverage academic teaching and research expertise in ways that benefit the Commonwealth’s communities.

Center for Economic Development

is a research and community-oriented technical assistance center that is partially funded by the Economic Development Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce. As an EDA Center, faculty and students have worked on economic development issues in more than 200 cities and towns in the past ten years. Faculty specializations include industrial development, commercial development, tourism, marketing, employment training and quantitative data analysis. The Center provides technical assistance to communities and undertakes critical community-based studies, enhancing local and multi-community capacity for strategic planning and development.

Center for Resilient Metro-Regions (CRM)

was established at the University of Massachusetts in 1985 to address the threat of uncontrolled growth to natural and built rural environments. The Center practices a research and outreach mission focused on sustainable development. Measures proposed in Center publications have been studied and adopted not only in Massachusetts but also elsewhere in the United States and the world. Former associates of the Center, including faculty and students, now hold highly significant planning positions in urbanizing parts of America, and others are writing about ideas initiated at the Center.

Center for Heritage and Society (CHS)

provides local planning and zoning officials with the tools is a multidisciplinary initiative for the development of new theory and implementation for heritage conservation around the world. CHS works with scholars internationally to develop multi- and interdisciplinary research in heritage related fields such as archaeology, history, environmental science, landscape architecture, regional planning, architecture, European studies, Native American Indian Studies, Afro-American Studies, Classics, legal studies, and public policy among others.

Sustainable Adaptive Gradients in the Coastal Environment (SAGE)

creates a network of U.S., Caribbean and European engineers, geoscientists, ecologists, social scientists, planners and policymakers. Together we develop and promote a robust interdisciplinary analytic framework for the wide range of possible infrastructure responses to coastal hazards across a range, or gradient of urban to rural areas.

Fabos Conference on Landscape and Greenway Planning

is held every three years to bring together experts who are influencing landscape planning, policy making and greenway planning from the local to international level. It is intended to highlight recent trends and expand the literature about landscape and greenway planning.