Cornell University Registrar

Introduction to the representation and design of landscapes and to working in a studio setting. Uses freehand drawing, measured drawing, digital tools and model making to understand design principles of the landscape within a cultural and ecological paradigm. This course receives more credit than typical for the meeting pattern due to substantial work outside of instructional hours.

This course applies fundamentals of landscape design to small-scale site-planning projects. Work in the studio introduces students to the design process, design principles, construction materials, and a wide array of graphic representation. Projects are selected at a variety of scales to expose students to a broad overview of landscape architecture.

Studio course emphasizing the design process and principles involved in organizing and giving form to outdoor space to create site-specific design.

Focuses on the role of materials and natural systems in design at multiple scales. Design strategies, theory and vocabulary in landscape architecture and allied disciplines are explored within the projects.

Various American Indian civilizations and European cultures have altered the landscape to meet the needs of their cultures. Students learn how to interpret the Euro-American landscapes of a buried village excavated by Cornell students. The students will identify and date artifacts, stud soil samples, and create site maps.

This is an introductory survey of the history and theory of landscape design, broadly defined to include diverse forms of planned human interventions in built and natural environments. We will consider a wide range of planned human interventions in both formal and informal landscapes of the past, including but not limited to aesthetic, functional, and ecological outcomes. Our primary focus will be on landscape design and planning developments from the 17th to late 20th century, placing North American sites and trends in relation to a hemispheric and global context of social, cultural, economic, political, and scientific forces. Critical concepts, sites, and conditions across time, space, and scale are explored through weekly topical lectures, creative exercises, discussions, readings, and essays.

This studio engages students in a design process on complex sites and spaces that interact with both human and natural systems, and critically explores theories of landscape architecture and representation through projects that derive form from a specific site and place. Students will work with processes of landscape change and how to design with and represent change. This course reinforces the fundamentals of theory as related to site-specific design processes.

This studio builds upon prior course work with an expectation that participants can creatively manipulate the program and conditions of a site or area, with increased emphasis on contemporary technology. The course focuses on the expression of design solutions that grow from and affirm an explicit sense of site and place. Social, cultural, physical, and historical factors and their relationship to site design and planning are critically explored through theory and practice.

This course exposes students to the fundamentals of site engineering and its relationship to best environmental practices. Lectures and short vignettes are provided to students and worked-through within the class period. These projects deal with site grading, earthwork estimating; storm water management, site layout, and essential associated professional skills. This course receives more credit than typical for the meeting pattern due to substantial academic activity outside of instructional hours.

This course intends to establish a solid base of technical knowledge about the physical and performative characteristics of traditional building materials and emerging alternatives realted to landscape architecture. In addition, the course encourages students to become astute observers and skilled recorders at the detail to landscape scales, while obtaining a greater materials sensibility to the design and construction processes that eventually translate into built landscapes. This includes the investigation of phenomenal elements and natural processes that take part in the integral relationships established between site assemblies and design intent or material expression. During the course of the semester students will be asked to challenge definitions of material convention, invention, and intervention; through lectures, workshops, discussions, and field trips. Students will examine materials and methods of landscape construction; frameworks for material selection and application; and representations for detail prototyping and construction documentation.

This research seminar will invert the figure/ground relationship of city and hinterlands, focusing on the rural territory as an ecological, social, cultural and spatial entity with its own attendant operations, and, in the context of changing climates, specific risks and opportunities. The Finger Lakes Region, its industries, economies, and ecologies will be the locus of our attention. Throughout the semester, each student will research a specific operational landscape, which will be collectively compiled into a Rural Atlas of the Finger Lakes Region. The atlas will unpack the cultural, geographic and regulatory contexts that shape each particular type of rural landscape, the specific risks and changes projected for the region, as well as speculative tools, management methods and assemblages that might help these communities adapt.

This studio focuses on the integration of theory and practice in landscape architecture at the urban scale. Urban design methods, morphology, and strategies are introduced and design and planning concepts applied to city-scaled projects including community engagement. Students are engaged in contemporary urban design strategies and methodologies on real-life projects in a metropolitan area.

Community and ecological infrastructure design studio.

Working with their advisor, students create a written and visual document that describes the concentration intent.

Designed to develop a working knowledge of AutoCAD as a tool for design and construction documentation. Explores the link between AutoCAD, Adobe Create Suite and Microsoft Office softwares.

This course presents the student with an understanding of the emerging role of the professional landscape architect. The course helps students choose a type of practice and introduces the problems and opportunities one may encounter in an office or in other professional situations. Topics include the diversity of types of professional practice, marketing professional services, office and project management, construction administration, and ethics.

In this course, we will explore how materials shape and reflect culture, history, and the environment. From everyday objects to treasured artifacts, materials have unique stories that impact how they are used and valued. Students will dive into how technologies, environmental changes, and cultural practices influence the availability and sustainability of materials. Through research, design, and hands-on fabrication, we will examine how materials are connected to both human and non-human systems. The course will empower students to design more sustainable and resilient futures by understanding the past, present, and future of materials.

With the advent of digital tools that construct hyper-real renderings, it is easy to mistake the photoreal for reality. As a tool for designers, representation is more than mimesis, but a means of analysis, process, and communication. This course will introduce workflows for depicting layered elements of complex sites, including not only physical form and visible phenomena, but also the often slow, invisible processes and human impacts that shape sites over time. As a laboratory in both analog and digital media, this course will explore representation through analog methods, ArcGIS Pro, Rhino, LiDAR scanning, and animations. At the heart of the semester’s inquiry will be a deep, engaged exploration of a single site, which each student will revisit throughout the course.

Topical lecture series and seminars with a different subject and method each time it is offered. Enrolled students will submit written responses to the presentations given, evaluating the content delivered and reflecting on how it impacts their own sense of the design disciplines.

Focuses on the identification, uses, and establishment of woody plants in urban and garden settings. By understanding the environmental limitations to plant growth, students are able to critically assess potential planting sites; select appropriate trees, shrubs, vines, and ground covers for a given site; and learn about the principles and practices of site amelioration and plant establishment. Design followed by written specifications and graphic details are developed to implement these practices. No prior design experience necessary.This course receives more credit than typical for the meeting pattern due to substantial academic activity outside of instructional hours.

The course centers the historical intersection of industrialization, environmentalism, and urbanism in the so-called Second World. It explores the 20th-century history of urban ecological design, focused on ‘landscape infrastructures’ e.g. urban parks, ecosystem services, industrial and communal hygiene, and systems of society-nature relations. Students will apply critical and comparative analysis to the question of when, where and how urbanists’ systems for urban environments and infrastructures proved (un)sustainable. What was the socialist dream of green cities? How did it vary across state-socialist contexts? What has happened to those dreams over time? More specifically, how did urbanists and affiliated specialists approach the design, construction and maintenances of built environments relative to state socialist political, economic and cultural conditions?

Topical subjects in landscape architectural design, theory, history, or technology. Group study of topics not considered in other courses.

This course addresses pertinent issues relative to the subject of History of Landscape Architecture, Rural Development, and Urbanism. The instructor(s) of the course are drawn from the permanent and visiting faculty who may either broadly or narrowly define the course’s scope and content. Topics vary each semester. Topical subjects in landscape architectural theory and history. Includes group study of topics not considered in other courses. Counts toward history/theory requirement for landscape architecture majors.

In this course, students participate in an experiential learning opportunity relevant to the student's focus of study or career goals in landscape architecture. A Landscape Architecture faculty member must serve as supervisor and complete the term grade report. Specific learning goals for the experience are arranged by the student with their internship faculty supervisor and the internship host prior to the start of the internship. All internship courses must adhere to the CALS Internship Guidelines.

Work on special topics by individuals or small groups.

Designed to give qualified undergraduates experience through actual involvement in planning and teaching courses under the supervision of department faculty members.

Permits outstanding undergraduates to carry out independent research in landscape architecture under academically appropriate faculty supervision. Research goals should include description, prediction, and explanation, and should generate new knowledge in the field of landscape architecture.

Introduction to landscape architectural design through a series of course modules that engage students in discovering, knowing and engaging the full potential of the landscape medium. In this process-oriented studio students will develop design proposals for real and imagined sites drawing on knowledge and principles from art, aesthetics, science, nature and culture. Each module sequence will also be integrated with the companion LA 5050 course and emphasize the unfolding and emergent nature of designerly thinking, making and doing.

Studio course emphasizing the design process and principles ingenerating design ideas, concepts and plans. The course focuses on the aestheties and functionality of site-specific design.

This course introduces students to landscape architectural representation and teaches conventions such as basic drafting and orthographic drawing (plan, section, axonometric) alongside freehand drawing, collage, modeling, photography and digital representation. Assignments will be fully integrated with the projects being undertaken in the companion Studio Course LA 5010 emphasizing the seamless interplay of landscape architectural design with the activities of drawing, making and representation through which it is conceived and visualized.

Intermediate-level course focusing on modes of landscape representation from ideation to presentation. Representation modes may include freehand, process drawing, and analysis and orthographic drawing; concept modeling; composite drawings; and visual books.

The MPS Research Design Studio provides MPS students in Landscape Architecture with foundational knowledge in design research theories, methods and tools through readings and discussion, research problem framing and weekly meetings to discuss project process.

Designed to develop a working knowledge of AutoCAD as a tool for design and construction documentation. Explores the link between AutoCAD, Adobe Create Suite and Microsoft Office softwares.

Topical lecture series and seminars with a different subject and method each time it is offered. Enrolled students will submit written responses to the presentations given, evaluating the content delivered and reflecting on how it impacts their own sense of the design disciplines.

This seminar is intended to provide Landscape Architecture Students (as well as Architecture, Planning students) with knowledge of the most relevant histories, theories and critical discourses related to the field from the scope of Landscape Design. We tend to think that theories provide the insight to embitter practice. However, there has been practice that provoked and enhanced disciplinary debate and actually generated a paradigm shift. The course launches a research question: it is only through the examination of influential design works that we can build the multiple dialogues between theory and practice: explore how theory is embedded into disciplinary production and study how pioneer works create specific and innovative disciplinary literature.

Focuses on the identification, uses, and establishment of woody plants in urban and garden settings. By understanding the environmental limitations to plant growth, students are able to critically assess potential planting sites; select appropriate trees, shrubs, vines, and ground covers for a given site; and learn about the principles and practices of site amelioration and plant establishment. Design followed by written specifications and graphic details are developed to implement these practices. No prior design experience necessary. This course receives more credit than typical for the meeting pattern due to substantial academic activity outside of instructional hours.

In this course, students participate in an experiential learning opportunity relevant to the student's focus of study or career goals in landscape architecture. A Landscape Architecture faculty member must serve as supervisor and complete the term grade report. Specific learning goals for the experience are arranged by the student with their internship faculty supervisor and the internship host prior to the start of the internship. All internship courses must adhere to the CALS Internship Guidelines.

Work on special topics by individuals or small groups.

Designed to give qualified students experience through involvement in planning and teaching courses under the supervision of faculty members. The experience may include leading discussion sections, preparing, assisting in desk critiques, and presenting lectures. There are assigned readings and discussion sessions on education theory and practice throughout the semester.

This studio focuses upon urban, site-scaled projects that consider significant cultural landscapes. The course explores theories of urban design strategies, sustainable design, and landscape representation. These are explored through a semester-long project that is derived from specific site and place. The integration of site history as well as contemporary urban condition is explored that supports an understanding and relationship between theory and practice.

This studio builds on prior course work with an expectation that participants can creatively manipulate the program and conditions of a site, with increased emphasis on contemporary technology and 'best' green practices. Projects focus upon the expression of design solutions that grow from and affirm an explicit sense of site and place. Social, cultural, physical, and historic factors and their relationship to site design and planning are critically explored through theory and practice.

Working with their advisor, students create a written and visual paper that documents the concentration intent.

This course presents teh student with an understanding of the emerging role of the professional landscape architect. The course helps students choose a type of practice and introduces the problems and opportunities one may encounter in an office or in other professional situations. Topics include the diversity of types of professional practice, marketing professional services, office and project management, construction administration, and ethics.

This course exposes students to the fundamentals of site engineering and its relationship to best environmental practices. Lectures and short vignettes are provided to students and worked-through within the class period. These projects deal with site grading, earthwork estimating; storm water management, site layout, and essential associated professional skills. This course receives more credit than typical for the meeting pattern due to substantial academic activity outside of instructional hours.

This course intends to establish a solid base of technical knowledge about the physical and performative characteristics of traditional building materials and emerging alternatives realted to landscape architecture. In addition, the course encourages students to become astute observers and skilled recorders at the detail to landscape scales, while obtaining a greater materials sensibility to the design and construction processes that eventually translate into built landscapes. This includes the investigation of phenomenal elements and natural processes that take part in the integral relationships established between site assemblies and design intent or material expression. During the course of the semester students will be asked to challenge definitions of material convention, invention, and intervention; through lectures, workshops, discussions, and field trips. Students will examine materials and methods of landscape construction; frameworks for material selection and application; and representations for detail prototyping and construction documentation.

In this course, we will explore how materials shape and reflect culture, history, and the environment. From everyday objects to treasured artifacts, materials have unique stories that impact how they are used and valued. Students will dive into how technologies, environmental changes, and cultural practices influence the availability and sustainability of materials. Through research, design, and hands-on fabrication, we will examine how materials are connected to both human and non-human systems. The course will empower students to design more sustainable and resilient futures by understanding the past, present, and future of materials.

This research seminar will invert the figure/ground relationship of city and hinterlands, focusing on the rural territory as an ecological, social, cultural and spatial entity with its own attendant operations, and, in the context of changing climates, specific risks and opportunities. The Finger Lakes Region, its industries, economies, and ecologies will be the locus of our attention. Throughout the semester, each student will research a specific operational landscape, which will be collectively compiled into a Rural Atlas of the Finger Lakes Region. The atlas will unpack the cultural, geographic and regulatory contexts that shape each particular type of rural landscape, the specific risks and changes projected for the region, as well as speculative tools, management methods and assemblages that might help these communities adapt.

With the advent of digital tools that construct hyper-real renderings, it is easy to mistake the photoreal for reality. As a tool for designers, representation is more than mimesis, but a means of analysis, process, and communication. This course will introduce workflows for depicting layered elements of complex sites, including not only physical form and visible phenomena, but also the often slow, invisible processes and human impacts that shape sites over time. As a laboratory in both analog and digital media, this course will explore representation through analog methods, ArcGIS Pro, Rhino, LiDAR scanning, and animations. At the heart of the semester’s inquiry will be a deep, engaged exploration of a single site, which each student will revisit throughout the course.

This lecture provides a comprehensive and critical overview of influential contemporary research in Landscape Architecture. It explores both foundational and emerging approaches within the field, particularly where they intersect with neighboring fields of inquiry. Students will engage with a variety of research frameworks and methodologies through a series of invited lectures, both on campus and online. Active participation in discussions with guest lecturers is expected, along with collective readings and presentations on key texts addressing current research trends. Throughout the semester, students will also develop their own research projects on topics of their choice. While the course offers a broad, eclectic review of innovative scholarly research, it places a particular emphasis on "research by design."

This is an introductory survey of the history and theory of landscape design, broadly defined to include diverse forms of planned human interventions in built and natural environments. We will consider a wide range of planned human interventions in both formal and informal landscapes of the past, including but not limited to aesthetic, functional, and ecological outcomes. Our primary focus will be on landscape design and planning developments from the 17th to late 20th century, placing North American sites and trends in relation to a hemispheric and global context of social, cultural, economic, political, and scientific forces. Critical concepts, sites, and conditions across time, space, and scale are explored through weekly topical lectures, creative exercises, discussions, readings, and essays.

The course centers the historical intersection of industrialization, environmentalism, and urbanism in the so-called Second World. It explores the 20th-century history of urban ecological design, focused on ‘landscape infrastructures’ e.g. urban parks, ecosystem services, industrial and communal hygiene, and systems of society-nature relations. Students will apply critical and comparative analysis to the question of when, where and how urbanists’ systems for urban environments and infrastructures proved (un)sustainable. What was the socialist dream of green cities? How did it vary across state-socialist contexts? What has happened to those dreams over time? More specifically, how did urbanists and affiliated specialists approach the design, construction and maintenances of built environments relative to state socialist political, economic and cultural conditions?

Topical subjects in landscape architectural design, theory, history, or technology. Includes group study of topics not considered in other courses.

Redefining the landscape and waterfront around one of Brooklyn's most architecturally iconic industrial shells, the New York Port Authority Grain Terminal will be the focus of this studio. Located at the base of the Gowanus Canal, between Gowanus and Red Hook, the massive structure looms over the water's edge. Over the course of the semester you will partner with local organizations to explore the elements and components that constitute this landscape and establish strategies for the environmental inputs and outputs, land-form and terrain, infrastructures, and urban form which address the social and environmental issues facing the community.

The discipline of landscape architecture requires an understanding of the many scales and types of landscape which it can address. Utilizing the location this summer, New York City is a highly complex, urban environment that is deeply entrenched in a long landscape history of urbanism, development, and climate change. Over time the city has adapted to significant changes, and continues to change with new periods of development. Landscape like Central Park, Brooklyn Bridge Park, The High Line, Battery Park City, and Governor's Island have redefined and shaped the profession of landscape architecture around the world. Experiencing these sites first hand is critical to the education of beginning designers, and observing their overall impact on the cities and the intricacies of the design details are invaluable tools in the field. Additionally, office visits and conversation with practicing professionals help shape the understanding and expectations for students.

This studio explores the application of urban design and landscape urbanism techniques to the problems and opportunities of contemporary city making. The studio investigates the social, cultural, natural, and infrastructural systems of urban environments, and develops integrated spatial design strategies involving water quality, public space, and flooding infrastructure. The course introduces three-dimensional computer modeling and digital design media as tools for urban design.

This advanced design studio provides students in the final year of the graduate program in Landscape Architecture with the opportunity to work on complex, real-time projects. The overarching goal of this course is to test the student's theoretical, methodological, technical, and representational competency and ability to engage with a range of scales and issues. Through intensive studio work, seminar sessions, independent research, and site visits, students gain the knowledge and skills necessary to develop sound and creative solutions to environmental design problems.

Independent research, under faculty guidance leading to the development of a comprehensive and defensible design or study related to the field of landscape architecture. Work is expected to be completed in final semester of enrollment.