Grad Studio II

Catalog description

LARCH 816 considers the broader landscape and systems within the landscape. Students learn to work at the broader landscape scale, making informed planning, design and management recommendations at that level, and enlightening site-scale design with a regional perspective. Students begin exploring ways to understand and address issues of regional context. Projects include an emphasis on regional analysis, site and program analysis, and site design in the regional context. Studio work involves research and report writing and medium- to large-scale projects where site design and program are directly influenced by regional factors. Topography, geomorphology, land use, transportation, regional ecology, demographics, landscape history, visual analysis, etc., are covered, all bound into current technological formats using such tools as Geographic Information Systems. Students explore ideas about landscape-scale conservation, linkages, and recreational programming - important types of regional-scale work with which landscape architects are involved. They apply knowledge of the landscape in considering public planning, design, and management interventions, including exploration of alternatives for landscape conservation and recreation. Students become involved, through community outreach projects, with interactive and real (e.g. sometimes messy) public dialogue that may help build community-wide enthusiasm for a landscape project of regional significance. Throughout the semester, students will continue to develop skills in graphic representation and visualization to explore design ideas and develop presentation graphics.