Fall Semester Class
Please check Spire for the most recent class number & schedule.
Instructor: Pader
To imagine changing even a small part of the world is a daunting, yet exhilarating proposition. Through class exercises, readings, exploration of social policy, guest speakers and a project that takes you to parts of the campus you might otherwise not explore, you will acquire knowledge and skills necessary for becoming a person who can make a difference. By the end of the semester you will have learned to connect ideas with action, have made a positive contribution to your community, and understand, through experience, the personal and social value of community engagement. This is a foundation course for the Civic Engagement and Service Learning certificate. (Gen. Ed. SB, U)
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Instructor: McGirr
Examines physical elements that compose a variety of visual environments including gardens and paintings; the cultural values underlying different types of American landscapes, from wilderness to cities; and the ways in which other cultures perceive, use, and create their own visual environments. (Gen.Ed. AT)
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Instructor: Di Pasquale
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Instructor: Aragón
The course will cover principles of graphic design, visualizing information, information graphics, and portfolio design. Course lectures will be complemented by digital skills workshops where students will become familiar with graphic design software (Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign). Through weekly exercises, students will build the skills necessary to complete a portfolio of creative work, or a visual book or project showcasing a body of research. For students interested in visual communication, data visualization, graphic design and portfolio design.
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Instructor: Carr
With lab. Introduction to 200 basic ornamental plants used in landscape architectural, horticultural, arboricultural, and other design uses; their identification, uses, and cultural requirements. Two weekly field trips around campus. Workbook with sketches required.
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Instructor: DiPasquale
The purpose of this class is to familiarize students in Environmental Design with the theory and methods that will be needed to prepare successful research or design project proposals and help students clarify what they intend to do in the future and how to reach that goal. Read more.
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Instructor: Eisenman
Since the rise of urban civilization, vegetated public space has been a strategy to enhance the experience of living in cities. The purpose of this course is to explore the theoretical and practical expressions of this urban greening aspiration, defined here as the introduction or conservation of outdoor flora in cities. Toward this goal, the course is organized in two parts: First, we will analyze the various discourses that have, and are currently, animating urban greening practice. Second, we will explore how urban greening is expressing itself in cities around the world today. This combined inquiry into theory and practice will enhance students' ability to develop urban greening strategies that respond to the needs of 21st century cities.
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In this course you as students will learn about the forces that have shaped the built environment from Neolithic times up through the Renaissance. From the study of these forces students should be able to compare and contrast this knowledge to present day development issues. Read More.
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Instructor: M. Hamin
Introduction to city and regional planning and the urban planning profession. The role the planner plays in addressing the wide range of problems and opportunities, city or regional, that now, or may in the future, confront America's modern urban environment.
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Instructor: Ryan
Environmental psychology is an interdisciplinary field which studies the relationship between the physical environment and human behavior. The premise is that people’s behavior (e.g., well-being, emotions, productivity, and even personal relationships) is affected by the physical environments where they live, work, and play. This graduate seminar is designed to introduce environment-behavior research to landscape architecture, architecture and regional planning students. Since this seminar draws heavily from the field of environmental psychology, this seminar may be of interest to graduate-level natural resource, psychology, geography, architecture and interior design majors. Read more.
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Instructor: Renski
This course emphasizes the application of quantitative methods to the practice of planning. As such, this is not a theory-based statistics course oriented to future doctoral researchers. Nor does this course offer a cookbook approach to quantitative reasoning. The diverse and ever-changing problems confronting professional planners defy one-size-fits-all approaches. Planners often find themselves in situations lacking analytical precedent where incomplete, ill-suited, or otherwise imperfect data are the norm. To adequately prepare planners for practice, this course provides a basic grounding in statistical theory and provides ample opportunity for students to apply these concepts to the solution of real-world problems. This course also reviews common sources of public socio-demographic information, and discusses techniques for the effective communication of quantitative information. Read More.
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Instructor: Hamin Infield
This course will introduce students to public participation at the practice level in planning. Lectures and class discussions will review current theory underpinning participation practice, and will critically evaluate the wide range of participation methods currently in use in planning practice. There will also be one or more exercises in participation implementation that occur outside standard class times, when we will join one of the other studio classes, and plan and run their participation process.
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Instructor: M. Hamin
This course examines the ‘nature’ (and ‘culture’) of city, community and regional planning relative to social, political and economic trends over time. Topics include: the significance of time and space in the planning process; the role of past, present and future conditions for planners; the appropriate scale and scope of plan-making; the advancement and assessment of knowledge in planning; the status of planning as science ↔ art, theory ↔ practice; the role of planning standards relative to decision-makers and stakeholders; the relationships of knowledge, value, and power; how each has succeeded (or survived) culturally and historically. While the main focus of the course will be planning history and theory, we also address urban-environmental programs and problems more generally.
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Instructor: Feiden
We will focus on regulatory, budgetary and other tools and techniques which are traditionally practiced by local governments to implement the community’s vision. Class format is instructor-led lectures and case studies mixed with student presentations and class discussions.
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Instructor: Renski
This course is a hands-on study in the applied methods of regional and local economic, demographic and spatial analysis. While this course should be of primary interest to students studying regional economic development planning, the material covered in class can also be applied to any number of fields including community and regional planners working on comprehensive plans, aspiring state and municipal policy analysts, applied demographers, workforce development professionals, analytical consultants, or pre-doctoral researchers in the social, behavioral and spatial sciences.
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Instructor: Ramsey-Musolf
Whether or not a student intends to work for a planning firm, government agency, or nonprofit, the goal of Planning Studio is to develop a student‘s techniques for collecting, analyzing, synthesizing spatial and non-spatial data and presenting that collective data in a manner (i.e., report, video, presentation, charettes) that is understandable to academics, professionals, and the public. Planning Studio allows students to integrate knowledge from coursework and research, and apply such knowledge to resolving representative planning problems. At UMASS Amherst, these problems are found in neighborhood, rural, urban, and/or regional settings.
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Instructor: Thurber
This studio you will explore the fundamentals of landscape design: landscape media, the anatomy and organization of space and how spaces accommodate human activities. You will explore how spaces relate to a real site with a context and clients needs. Through your assignments, you will see what size and proportion of spaces are successful for human activities and learn how to use plans, sections and physical 3D-models to communicate your ideas. Through site visits and fieldwork, you should begin to understand how to assess a site and understand its physical and cultural context. Read more.
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Instructor: Clouse
The private garden is the basis for the profession of Landscape Architecture and, as such, contains all the issues and problems of larger scale, complex landscape problems, but in the most direct, personal and intimate way. These issues and problems include addressing the human need for privacy and community; the relationship between shelter and landscape; and the “nature” of landscape design as a unique and ephemeral, ethereal spatial art that attempts to redress people’s practical, physical, intellectual and spiritual relationship to the world outside us, and to ourselves. The private garden is part of a distinct larger landscape that includes an ecological system and a public domain and should be understood as such. Designing the garden, like any work of landscape, requires an understanding of the larger context, but also a specific understanding of the site since the nature of landscape design is to change an already existent place. Within the garden a range of human activities must be accommodated, including provision of shelter(s) for work, play, rest, and contemplation and landscape spaces for driving, parking, walking, active playing and relaxing. Read more.
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Instructor: Davidsohn
The studio will be a laboratory for experimentation, observation and design. We will focus on the role of seating in public space as a way to become familiar with human dimensions and behavior. Through construction of fullscale prototypes for seating, observation and documentation of people’s behavior related to sitting in outdoor public spaces, we will generate unique design solutions for the improvement of public spaces on the campus of UMass Amherst. Our designs will be rooted in observations of behavior, and in the creative interpretation of the sculptural and tectonic quality of our chair prototypes. This will enable us to create solutions for engaging public spaces on campus. Read more.
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Instructor: Davidsohn
Landscape architecture encompasses knowledge from a broad range of professional disciplines -- the arts and the sciences including: horticulture, soils science, geology, ecology, architecture, civil and structural engineering, and the construction industry. Landscape Architects must be capable of understanding the implications of landscape construction for both the site and for the user in order to create built works of aesthetic and functional beauty, while at the same time, insuring landscape stability, and protection of the environment. The subjects within this course contribute to the knowledge base needed to achieve this goal. Read more.
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Instructor: Sleegers
Town/urban scale -- issues of design in an urban situation with a focus on areas of public use. Topics on historic preservation. Urban detail design -- issues of urban design at a detailed level. Information from construction, plant materials, planting design, and other studios to develop a complete package of drawings.
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Instructor: McGirr
Introduces students to reading and responding to the site. Goals include learning to experience and record the landscape, to design in response to the site, to think creatively, to generate design ideas and understand design as a process, to gain knowledge of design precedents and principles, and to learn tools and techniques of visual expression
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Instructor: Eisenman
An exploration of the modes of space: two-dimensional surfaces, three-dimensional objects, spatial enclosure, and the open continuous landscape. Emphasis on the media of landform, water, plants, and structures as the defining agents of human space in the garden and the landscape.
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Instructor: MacDonald
Landscape patterns resulting from interactions of biotic, abiotic, and cultural resources and processes over time. Understanding these dynamics as a prerequisite to appropriate planning and design interventions.
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Instructor: Sleegers
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Instructor: Aragon
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Instructor: Carr
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Instructor: Solano
The overall goal of this studio is to teach students how to plan and implement green infrastructure projects at multiple scales. This will require the ability to synthesize information about natural features, recreation resources, and development patterns to create a green infrastructure network that addresses the unique problems and opportunities of the study area. This studio will focus on finding innovative strategies for improving water resources in a developing suburban area while creating urban wildlife habitats, improving recreation access, and environmental quality. Read more.
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Instructor: Davidsohn
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Instructor: Aragon
With studio. Introduction to architectural drafting, freehand drawing, orthographic projection, shades and shadows, rendering techniques and perspective. Weekly drafting assignments. Considerable equipment expense.
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Instructor: Brabec