Course Descriptions

Design Studio Sequence (11 courses)

In this sequence, the core of the landscape architecture program, students learn the principles, methods, processes, and techniques of landscape architecture design. Each half-semester (seven- week) studio poses progressively more complex challenges. A different instructor teaches each studio, ensuring a diverse range of project types, scales, and points of view.

LandArch 201 Studio I: Fundamentals: Spaces & Landscape Media

This foundational studio addresses an understanding of the landscape media--landform, water, plants, and structure--that define landscape space.

LandArch 202 Studio II: Spaces & Places in Context

This studio is a continued exploration of landscape design and media through the introduction of a real site, typically a local, small public park.

LandArch 203 Studio III: Designing with Plants

Working with a local site, this studio emphasizes the use of plants in creating landscape structure and aesthetics. Particular attention is paid to regional character and the use of native plants.

LandArch 204 Studio IV: Designing with Landform

This studio emphasizes the use of landform and grading as media for creating spaces. The site is larger than previous studios, requiring greater depth in site analysis, more complexity in program development and spatial organization, and supporting the ability to design at different scales.

LandArch 301 Studio V: Recreation and Open Space Design

Using a relatively large site and a complex program, this studio introduces the master planning of an open space or park system and the design of individual landscape spaces within the system network. Students consider concepts of public and private space and are expected to respond to the larger community and historical context.

LandArch 302 Studio VI: Residential Garden Design

Working at the intimate scale of the private garden, the studio explores the relationships among architecture, shelter, and outdoor space. This studio typically involves a real client, along with an existing site and structure to which students must respond.

LandArch 303 Studio VII: Toward Sustainable Multi-Family Housing & Significant Open Space

The studio explores multi-family row housing and open space with structured public space and private gardens for human activities. Exploring low, moderate and high-density row housing, the project broaches the three components of sustainability: sensitivity to environment, economy of means, and social justice.

LandArch 304 Studio VIII: Sustainable Commercial and Institutional Design

This studio uses commercial and industrial development as a vehicle for exploring sustainable site planning.

LandArch 401 Studio IX: Urban Design: Sustainable Urban Systems

Often working in low-income neighborhoods in nearby Springfield, this studio focuses on areas of public use that will foster the development of a sustainable local community and serve as amenities for the city at large. The studio works to support the ethnic diversity of neighborhoods and develops open spaces that address storm water management and brownfield mitigation in order to create a sustainable urban environment.

LandArch 402 Studio X: Urban Design: Design Development

In this studio, a continuation of the Sustainable Urban Systems studio, students develop their schematic urban designs at the detail level, taking into account the ecology, maintenance, and intensity of use of the site.

LandArch 494LI Studio XI: Senior Capstone Studio

This fourteen-week study begins with large scale open space planning in the form of a greenway for recreational, scenic, and economic opportunities. It moves on to the design of a specific public landscape within that corridor, with an emphasis on interpreting, recovering or conveying the social, historical or other significance of the place for surrounding communities.

 

Natural and Cultural Factors Sequence (3 courses)

This set of lecture classes acquaints students with the natural and cultural processes that shape the landscape. They cover the theories and knowledge that explain and inform how planning and design can better serve human and environmental goals in regards to ecological, economic and social concerns.​

SustComm 335 Plants in the Landscape

Familiarizes students with woody plants, their use in the creation of outdoor space, roles in ecological processes and horticultural practices related to their establishment and maintenance. In conjunction with LandArch 547 Landscape Pattern and Process, introduces reading the landscape in terms of plant community development and individual species within various communities of the New England landscape.

LandArch 547 & 547L Landscape Patterns and Process with Lab

Focuses on landscape ecology as applied to planning and design decision-making. Explores landscape structure, function and dynamic processes at multiple scales. Introduces theoretical and technical knowledge that supports sustainable landscape planning, design, and management. Lab includes a series of local field trips and introductory labs in GIS.

SustComm 574 City Planning

Familiarizes students with regulatory policy and planning as a context for design and environmental decision making. Influencing factors include physical systems (land, resources, infrastructure, housing, public space) as well as value systems (social, ecological, cultural). Acquaints students with planning history and tools and techniques, as well as contemporary deliberations on sustainable ecology, economy, and equity.

 

Professional Skills (9 courses)

In this sequence, students develop the skills and knowledge required to implement landscape architectural projects. Included are courses in graphic and written communication, landform manipulation, construction materials, site engineering, computer-aided design, and professional practice.

LandArch 191A Graphics

Develops drawing skills necessary to conceive, develop, and communicate design ideas. Introduces plan and section drafting, freehand drawing, orthographic projection, rendering techniques, and perspective. These basic skills are further developed throughout the studio sequence beginning in the sophomore year. Material costs: $300.

LandArch 294A/298C Construction Materials with Lab

Introduces students to materials and construction techniques used in landscape construction, in the regional framework of the New England landscape and climate. Design details and construction methods are discussed relative to aesthetic and functional concerns, emphasizing the critical relationship between landscape technique and design.

LandArch 313 Site Engineering

Introduces the fundamental components of site engineering, including: grading and landform manipulation, on-site drainage systems, construction calculations, road alignment, and site design criteria. Develops students’ drafting and AutoCAD skills, with emphasis on construction document preparation.

SustComm 314 Writing in Comm Development & Landscape Arch (Junior Year Writing)

Explores and develops writing skills in the context of the discipline of landscape architecture. Assignments are designed to help students evaluate their interests in the field. Covers a range of writing types including business, academic, and creative writing, with an emphasis on effective revisions. Satisfies the University’s junior year writing requirement. Only Sustainable Community Development and Landscape Architecture majors can take this course.

LandArch 494A Professional Practice

Prepares students for entry into professional practice by examining a range of approaches and methods for providing professional services. Encourages discussion of professional ethics and responsibilities. Topics include: different modes of practice, the evolution of one’s career, different models of office organization and procedures, tools and tips for effective marketing, the need for professional collaboration, project management, and professional ethics.

LandArch 583 Digital Design Representation

Introduces digital tools used for landscape architecture and design thinking, including AutoCAD, graphics and image editing, 3-D modeling and animation, data management and integration. These applications and digital tools are integrated into various studios, beginning in the sophomore year.

 

History Sequence (2 courses)

Designers continue to be informed by the works that preceded them. Courses in this sequence provide students with knowledge of built works of the past and present and the social, economic, technological, and aesthetic forces that influenced their design and construction.

SustComm 543 History I Ancient to Medieval World

Introduces students to the historic forces that have shaped the human-influenced environment from ancient civilizations to the Renaissance as manifested in particular environments.
Students are expected to understand historic and geographical contexts, and cultural forces that have contributed to changes in the built environment.

SustComm 544 History II Renaissance to the Present

Serves as a continuation of SustComm 543, from the Renaissance to the present. Emphasizes Europe and North America and landscape design traditions that have led to contemporary design movements. A ‘canon’ of specific works, individuals, and theories are studied in the context of their time and place. Students learn to see, analyze, and appreciate works of landscape design as the result of the artistic, cultural, and natural forces that have shaped them.