Below are currently offered courses for the spring semester. For course meeting times and locations, see the UC Berkeley Online Schedule of Classes.
Lower - and Upper-Division Courses
LD ARCH 1 (Sullivan)
Drawing a Green Future: Fundamentals of Visual Representation and Creativity
(5) Course Format: Two hours of lecture and six hours of studio per week. Description: This introductory studio course is open to all undergraduate students in the University, who want to investigate the process of drawing as a method to learn how to perceive, observe and represent the environment. This studio will encourage visual thinking as a formative tool for problem solving that provides a means to envision a sustainable future. The focus will be on the critical coordination between hand, mind and idea.
Sequence 04_1 from College of Environmental Design on Vimeo.
Extended Course Description
LA 1 is an introductory course on visual representation and creativity, open to all undergraduate students in the University, who want to investigate the process of drawing as a method of learning how to perceive, observe and represent the environment. Our Laboratory will encourage visual thinking as a formative tool for problem solving that provides a means to envision a sustainable future.
Objectives:
- to give form to the gesture of thought, and appreciate the role of intuition and imagination in comprehending the dynamic relationship between seeing, thinking, and doing.
- to acquire new knowledge of the physical environment through careful observation and documentation using journaling and visual note-taking.
- to study proportion, human form and spatial relationships through drawing and painting from nature.
- to understand how space is choreographed and perceived by investigating the art of the sequential narrative in cinematography, animation, and graphic novels.
LD ARCH 102 (Kullmann)
Case Studies in Landscape Design
(5) Course Format: Two hours of lecture and six hours of studio per week. Prerequisites: 101 or consent of instructor. Description: This studio stresses the shaping and coordination of ideas from initial concept to complete design product. A product(s) of intermediate scale and complexity (such as a garden, small park, plaza, or campus courtyard) will be developed in detail including the selection of planting, selection of construction materials, and topographic design. Lecture modules on selected professional topics are integrated into this course.
Extended Course Description
This studio stresses the shaping and coordination of ideas from initial concept to complete design product. A product(s) of intermediate scale and complexity will be developed in detail including the selection of construction materials, planting and topographic design. Lecture modules on selected professional topics are integrated into this course.
LD ARCH 111 (Hindle)
Landscape in Design
(3) Course Format: Through lecture, research, and studio assignments, this course introduces the use of plants as design elements in the landscape, from the urban scale to the site-specific scale, focusing on the public open space. By analyzing historic, contemporary, and Bay Area examples, the course examines the spatial, visual, and sensory qualities of vegetation, as well as the interplay with ecological functions and engineering uses of plants.
LD ARCH 121 (Hurdich)
Design in Detail: Introduction to Landscape Materials and Construction
(4) Landscapes are constructed. Landscape architects need to understand building materials and methods of construction from their source, extraction, manufacturing, construction, and use to their recovery for subsequent purposes. This course examines the history of a material’s use, explores theories about their properties and qualities, and investigates performative aspects in terms of sustainable and responsible applications in design. Assignments include drawing standard details in computer-aided design format, making construction drawings of built elements, and documenting field trips. You are also expected to do an investigation of your choice on a related topic, such as making a photograph or sketch journal, documenting on-going government and industry research or industry innovations as reported in the media, or working on and blogging about the Blake Garden Project (see Joanna Salem for details).
Extended Course Description
Constructed Landscapes are important element of any built environment - this course focuses on providing an introduction to landscape materials and their construction in a variety of settings and will examine their visual and physical characteristics. Materials examined in the course will include concrete, stone, earthen materials and brick, metals, fire and water elements, and composites and plastic. Additionally, the course will cover availability and impacts of obtaining the materials as well as the environmental cost and opportunities. Dimensional standards for landscape structures including stairs, walls, furnishings, fences, decks and overhead structures.
LD ARCH 130 (Stryker)
Sustainable Landscapes and Cities
(3) Course Format: Three hours of lecture per week. Description: This course introduces the foundations of sustainability most related to the restoration, design, and creation of landscapes and cities. The underlying principles of ecology, nature, and democracy are concretized in centered-ness, connectedness, fairness, sensible status seeking, sacredness, particular-ness, selective diversity, density and smallness, limited extent, adaptability, everyday future, naturalness, inhabiting science, reciprocal stewardship, and pacing.
Extended Course Description
This course is an introduction to issues of sustainability in the designed landscape and in our cities. It includes environmental history as well as contemporary social, environmental and political issues surrounding sustainable design and activism. The course will stress motives and values expressed through environmental design at various scales – from neighborhood to global. We will examine problems affecting healthy environments and their solutions. We will study the need for protection and restoration of healthy ecological systems within the design of cities and landscapes and discuss ways to enable these systems to thrive. Readings and discussions will focus on means to evaluate, create and advocate for healthy, sustainable environments.
Slides and films will augment class lectures. Guest lecturers from LAEP faculty and the professional design community will complement lectures. A term paper as well as significant field trip to critique designed spaces are required. Short assignments will be given throughout the semester.
Texts:
1. Design for Ecological Democracy, Randolph T. Hester, Jr. available at U.C. Bookstore
2. Course reader, available at Zee Zee Copy, 2431-C Durant Avenue.
3. Various additional articles will be provided during class meetings as handouts.
Objectives:
Attendance
Please attend all lectures and scheduled field trip. More than 3 absences will reduce your final grade by ½ a grade. A severe attendance (more than 5) will earn a failing grade.
Participation
Questions and comments during class.
A class field trip is required.
Minimum of one office visit to me or GSI during office hours/by appointment
Grades will be based on:
A significant term paper; a Mid-term and Final Exam; attendance; in-class participation, field trip and completion of short assignments during the semester.
LD ARCH 135 (Glass)
Sacred Landscapes
(3) Sacred Landscapes is a laboratory for invention and visual perception. A designed landscape has the potential to induce a powerful emotional experience. The premise of this course is based on the idea that highly valued places are works of art, as well as places of enlightenment and transformation. this class will explore ideas of ‘sacredness’ in the landscape through a series of design explorations and a summation project. Our journey of discovery aspires to provide future landscape architects with a new and unique perspective to help them recognize and generate Sacred Landscapes. Design Thinking will outline a process for creative practice that builds upon historic approaches while imagining new possibilities for a “functional metaphysics” of landscape architecture
Extended Course Description
Teaching methods include lectures, demonstrations, field trips and applications of theory through studio exercises and homework assignments. At the beginning of each class there will be a review of the previous week’s assignment. Following the review of work, the instructor will introduce the new topic of the week through a lecture and class discussion. The skills necessary to complete each assignment will be demonstrated and practiced in class. There will be a final project which will incorporate the design vocabulary developed throughout the semester.
Course Overview
At the conclusion of the course, the student should be able to:
- To understand the relationship between landscape architecture and place.
- To conceptualize landscape architecture and bio-remediation as alchemical process
- To recognize elements which define sacred and haunted spaces
- To comprehend the role of dreaming in the creative process and to relate the origins of Genius Loci to contemporary design
LD ARCH 160 (Lozier)
Professional Practice Seminar
(2 or 3) Course Format: Three hours of seminar per week. Description: Survey and analysis of professional practice in landscape architecture focusing on: the context of professional practice--office structure, public, private and non-profit practice, marketing, project management and delivery; the legal parameters of practice--contracts, codes, planning regulations, project approval processes, liability; and economics--budgeting, profits, project development costs, fiscal impacts, and financing.
Extended Course Description
This course provides instruction and guidance in the professional practice aspect of landscape architecture in the United States. Covering the breadth of the profession, we will learn the professional duties of a landscape architect, and the process of completing a real-life landscape architectural project. The goal of this class will be to learn what it means to be a practicing, licensed landscape architect, with the understanding that this is ultimately a construction based, service-oriented industry.
With the view of preparing students for the working world, this course will cover the skills necessary for getting a job and will provide the opportunity to construct a portfolio and resume. It will also give an opportunity to understand and absorb the full potential of a landscape architectural education by meeting and listening to a variety of professionals describe their job duties and work environment.
This course is offered as 2 units (standard) or 3 units (internship option, depending on internship availability). The internship option provides students an opportunity to hone their practical skills and learn the tempo of a landscape architectural practice by participating in an internship.
Topics Covered:
Introduction to landscape practice
- Structure of a landscape architectural consultancy
- Design Team Structure, prime and sub-consultants
- Project implementation SD, DD, CE, CA
- Specifications
- RFPs and Proposals
- Fee Proposals
Employment
- Assembling a Portfolio
- Resumes and Interviewing
- Salary ranges
Licensing exam
- Content
- Strategy
Business law
- Insurance
- Contracts
- Licensure
Instructional Methods:
- Guest Interviews: Up to 6 landscape professionals practicing in a variety of job positions will be invited to speak and answer questions.
- Course Lectures and Discussion: Pertaining to how a practice functions, and projects are brought in and completed.
- Internship: Each student will participate in an internship with a landscape architectural firm for a total of 64 hours in the semester.
- Readings: Business Law for Landscape Architects by Bill Beery.
Requirements for Credit:
As part of this class students will be required to build and complete their school portfolio, write a short term paper, and write and present a chapter report from the business law book. Since this will be a fast-paced class, full attendance is highly encouraged. This course is offered as 2 units (standard) or 3 units (with optional internship, if internships are available).
2 UNIT REQUIREMENTS + EVALUATION
- Portfolio completion 25%
- Term paper: “Aspirations for a Career in Landscape Arch.” 25%
- Class attendance & contribution to class discussion 25%
- Book chapter reports 25%
3 UNIT REQUIREMENTS + EVALUATION
- Portfolio completion 20%
- Term paper: “Aspirations for a Career in Landscape Arch.” 20%
- Class attendance & contribution to class discussion 20%
- Book chapter reports 20%
- Internship evaluation 20%
LD ARCH 170 (Mozingo)
History and Literature of Landscape Architecture
(3) Course Format: Three hours of lecture per week. Description: This course surveys the history of landscape architecture in four realms: 1) gardens; 2) urban open space, that is, plazas, parks, and recreation systems; 3) urban and suburban design; and 4) regional and environmental planning. The course will review the cultural and social contexts which have shaped and informed landscape architecture practice and aesthetics, as well as the environmental concerns, horticultural practices, and technological innovations of historic landscapes.
Extended Course Description
This course surveys the history of landscape architecture, in four areas: 1) gardens; 2) urban open spaces--that is squares, plazas, parks, and recreation systems; 3) urban and suburban design; and 4) regional and environmental planning. We will emphasize the cultural, social, and economic contexts that have shaped and informed historic landscapes, broadly defined, and the influence of environmental concerns, horticultural techniques, and technological innovations.
Students will complete a midterm, final, and a research assignment, and there will be two pop quizzes during the semester. You are also required to attend a note taking session, a research assignment topic session, and a library research session to prepare for your research paper. Class attendance is absolutely necessary to complete the course with maximum success. Handouts or downloads of site plans, relevant terms and sites will be available for each lecture topic, but no online images or lecture summaries are available for this course.
LD ARCH 197 (Staff)
Field Study in Landscape Architecture
(2-3: PN) Course Format: Hours to be arranged. Prerequisites: Upper division standing and consent of instructor and sponsor. See departmental information sheet for limitations. Must be taken on a passed/not passed basis. Supervised experience relative to specific aspects of landscape architecture. Regular individual meetings with faculty and outside sponsor. Reports required.
LD ARCH 198 (Staff)
Directed Group Study
(1-4: PN) Course Format: Hours to be arranged. Prerequisites: Consent of instructor. No more than 4 units allowed each semester. Course may be repeated for credit. Must be taken on a passed/not passed basis. Enrollment restrictions apply.
LD ARCH 199 (Staff)
Supervised Independent Study and Research
(1-4: PN) Course Format: Hours to be arranged. Prerequisites: Consent of instructor. Course may be repeated for credit. Must be taken on a passed/not passed basis. Enrollment restrictions apply.
Graduate Courses
LD ARCH 200B (Hood/DeGregorio)
Case Studies in Landscape Design
(5) Two hours of lecture and six hours of studio per week. Prerequisites: Landscape Architecture 200A. Formerly Landscape Architecture 102. This studio stresses the shaping and coordination of ideas from initial concept to complete design product. A product(s) of intermediate scale and complexity (such as a garden, small park, plaza, or campus courtyard) will be developed in detail including the selection of planting, selection of construction materials, and topographic design. Lecture modules on selected professional topics are integrated into this course.
Extended Course Description
To come.
LD ARCH 202 (Staff)
Design of Landscape Sites
(5) Course Format: Two hours of lecture and six hours of studio per week. Prerequisites: 201 or consent of instructor. Description: A site design studio stressing the development of design ideas from initial concept to complete design of open space in various contexts. Typical projects will be of an intermediate scale and in an urban setting.
Extended Course Description
Coming Soon!
LD ARCH 204 (Meyer)
Advanced Project Design
(5) Course Format: Three hours of lecture and six hours of studio per week. Prerequisites: 201 or consent of instructor. Description: Special topics in the design and planning of the landscape. The focus of the studio varies from semester to semester. Possible topics include community design, educative environments, landscape as art, park design, or energy-conserving design. For current offerings, see department announcement.
Extended Course Description
The majority of the semester will be dedicated to two site specific projects in San Francisco. One will be privately enclosed and the other will be open and public. The first project will be based upon a currently proposed office development that frames an exterior courtyard. Proposed architectural plans will be provided but students will identify tenants and program to inform their concepts. The second project will be dedicated to specific site designs for vacant lots in San Francisco, California. Selection of lots and definition of program will be determined by the students.
This studio has two primary goals. The first goal is that you approach your work conceptually. Instead of being asked to solve multiple problems or address specific program requirements, students will be asked to design landscapes that embody ideas. By utilizing the basics of good design, students will be encouraged to realize their ideas through minimal moves. Students will be encouraged to think about composition more in the terms of being experiential, rather than pictorial. Students will be encouraged to make landscapes that distinguish place, to make them memorable and to go beyond just making them “green”.
The second goal is to pursue the thoughtful execution of ideas to see how they manifest themselves physically. Taking concepts beyond collage and sketch models, you’ll identify a portion of your final studio problem and craft its physicality. Models and drawings, full scale if need be, will be used to explore materials, form, scale, proportion and tectonics.
The majority of our time will be spent in the studio, working together through desk crits and pin-ups where students will convey their work through drawings and models.
LD ARCH 205 (Kondolf)
Environmental Planning Studio
(5) Course Format: Three hours of lecture and six hours of studio per week. Prerequisites: 201 or consent of instructor. Note: course is open to graduate students in LAEP, and to students in other departments by application and consent of instructors as space is available. Description: Application of environmental planning principles to a complex problem involving a variety of environmental criteria and desired land uses in a complex institutional and political setting. Student teams will identify needed data, assess environmental developmental problems, weigh competing uses, and prepare an environmental management plan.
Extended Course Description
The focus of this studio is applying natural and social science to understanding landscape and urban processes, identifying opportunities, and creating plans, policies, regulations, and designs for sustainable development. In the studio, we work as a professional team, breaking into smaller interdisciplinary teams to tackle specific topics. We conduct spatial analysis using available digital datasets, conduct original field work, conduct geomorphic, hydrologic ecological, institutional and regulatory analyses, and consult with stakeholders and communities. Based on our analysis, we develop plans informed by environmental and social science, promoting biodiversity and community development. Our plans seek to address economic development and environmental protection as one, and tackle some of the most critical environmental issues of our time – rising sea level, land use and risk from natural hazards, unsustainable urban form, protection of endangered species and biodiversity, and loss of wetlands, agricultural lands and cultural diversity. We normally tackle three topics over the semester, spanning multiple scales and geographic regions. To inform strategic planning, we produce spatial relationships that are defensible to climate change and examine how land use policies may need to be altered in light of current and future conditions of the landscape.
LD ARCH 206 (Mozingo)
Final Project Preparation Studio: Thesis and Reports
(5) Course Format: Three hours of lecture and six hours of studio per week. Prerequisites: 252 and graduate standing. Description: This is a spring studio for students to work on final projects (theses and professional reports). The studio, including lectures by the instructor, is meant to train and assist students in thesis or professional project research and help them in finalizing their thesis or professional report topic. The course includes weekly exercises ranging from writing articles documenting, illustrating, and critiquing landscapes to finally producing a thesis or professional report.
Extended Course Description
This is the final course in the thesis prep series. The meetings are periodic but a schedule with strict deadlines is set to keep students on course with their thesis/professional project. During the semester students will produce a full second draft complete with graphics and citations, and final thesis/professional report for submission to the Graduate Division or LAEP Department. Students present final work to faculty, invited guests, and fellow students during the final weeks of the semester.
Prerequisites:
LA 252B
LD ARCH 221 (Radke)
Quantitative Methods in Environmental Planning
(3) Course Format: One and one-half hours of lecture and three hours of laboratory per week. Description: Discussion and critique of the application of quantitative methods to environmental assessment, analysis, and evaluation in environmental planning. Topics to include geographical information systems and data bases, remote sensing, and multivariate analysis. This course emphasizes computer applications and data analysis.
Extended Course Description
This course is designed for graduate students in Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning or related disciplines. This course advances a student’s knowledge in the application of Geographical Information Science (GIS) within an Environmental Planning context. The course is designed to give the student the skills necessary to undertake spatial problem solving, spatial analysis and model building. This course emphasizes the interplay of theory and application, with six computer based homework assignments (most involving analyses within ArcGIS 10x). Theory is introduced through lectures and assigned readings, while application is emphasized during in class exercises, homework assignments, and a final project. This course will examine various methods employed in seeking answers to spatial problems. The lecture is structured as a seminar in which the instructor, students and guests will discuss theory, methods and the application of GIS to environmental analysis, landscape modeling and characterization. The laboratory will provide a practical introduction to some tools for design, construction and implementing such systems. We will begin by looking at some simple implementations of models within GIS. Each student will then build their own model and code it in one of two different computer interfaces (Model Builder and/or Python). After undertaking a number of modeling laboratories, each student will define an environmental problem and construct a model within GIS to solve the problem.
Prerequisites:
Prior experience with GIS or desktop mapping is required. LD_ARCHc188/GEOGc188 or CP204c are two courses that are good prerequisites.
LD ARCH 234B (Mohr)
Landscape Processes through Drawing and Modeling
(3) This course will explore landscape representation through a variety of drawing types and conventions, across a range of scales, and through a deep engagement with digital media. This course builds on the foundational methods developed in LA 234A, incorporating new methods, tools, and techniques for digital visualization. The course is structured through lectures and discussions about the historical and theoretical relevance of the theme, as well as, lab sessions focused on demonstrating representational tools and techniques. Simultaneous to these units, continued development of analog sketching will be expected.
OVERVIEW
Our role as landscape architects is to propose design strategies and aesthetic agendas for the environment that respond to ecological and social contexts. We use representation and modeling tools to interpret, imagine, and produce descriptions of space and form. Moreover, our first design move is to image the landscape and frame what we value as relevant. Our graphic traditions—painting, drawing, photography, modeling, and mapping—are essential in communicating our ideas about the landscape to others and ourselves. These representations are not neutral; within each drawing, image, and model, is an embedded power to create and strengthen an agenda for the landscape.
LD ARCH 253 (Staff)
Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning Colloquium: Water-Energy Nexus
(1) Invited lectures on current research, planning practice, and design projects. Out of approximately 14 presentations per term, typically two or three would be by department faculty, two or three by graduating students, the remainder by outside speakers.
Extended Course Description
This semester’s Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning Colloquium Series focuses on the water-energy nexus, with weekly lectures by experts from a range of fields, each 40 minutes followed by a question and answer period.
Energy and water are interrelated: we use energy for water, and we use water for energy. A large amount of energy is needed to extract, convey, treat, and deliver potable water. Additionally, energy is required to collect, treat, and dispose of wastewater. Water heating alone is responsible for 9% of residential electricity consumption in the United States. Nationwide, water and wastewater treatment and distribution combined require about 3% of the nation’s electricity. However, regionally, that number can be much higher. In California, where water is moved hundreds of miles across two mountain ranges, water is responsible for approximately 15% of the state’s total electricity consumption. Similarly, large investments of energy for water occurs wherever water is scarce, and energy is available.
In addition to using energy for water, we also use water for energy. We use water directly through hydroelectric power generation at major dams, indirectly as a coolant for thermoelectric power plants, and as a critical input for the production of biofuels. The thermoelectric power sector - comprised of power plants that use heat to generate power, including those that operate on nuclear, coal, natural gas or biomass fuels - is the single largest user of water in the United States.
LD ARCH 259 (Kullmann)
Ground Up Journal
(1-3) Course Format: Varies. Research seminar on selected topics in landscape design. Seminars will focus on the theoretical foundations and practical applications of design and planning methods as well as emerging issues in the discipline. Seminars will include lectures by the faculty member offering the course, guest lecturers, student presentations, and discussions. Readings and requirements vary from year to year based on the topic and instructor.
Extended Course Description
Ground Up is the student journal of the Department of Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning at University of California at Berkeley. Published annually, each issue centers on a theme of contemporary relevance with interdisciplinary possibilities. Articles and artworks are gathered through an open call for submissions, so naturally the journal is always guided by the interests of our readers and collaborators — from academics to practitioners, artists to scientists, and students to professionals. And really anyone with an interesting thought to share.
LD ARCH 260 (Lozier)
Professional Practice Seminar
(3) Course Format: Three hours of seminar per week. Description: Survey and analysis of professional practice in landscape architecture focusing on: the context of professional practice--office structure, public, private and non-profit practice, marketing, project management and delivery; the legal parameters of practice--contracts, codes, planning regulations, project approval processes, liability; and economics--budgeting, profits, project development costs, fiscal impacts, and financing.
Extended Course Description
This course provides instruction and guidance in the professional practice aspect of landscape architecture in the United States. Covering the breadth of the profession, we will learn the professional duties of a landscape architect, and the process of completing a real-life landscape architectural project. The goal of this class will be to learn what it means to be a practicing, licensed landscape architect, with the understanding that this is ultimately a construction based, service-oriented industry.
With the view of preparing students for the working world, this course will cover the skills necessary for getting a job and will provide the opportunity to construct a portfolio and resume. It will also give an opportunity to understand and absorb the full potential of a landscape architectural education by meeting and listening to a variety of professionals describe their job duties and work environment.
This course is offered as 2 units (standard) or 3 units (internship option, depending on internship availability). The internship option provides students an opportunity to hone their practical skills and learn the tempo of a landscape architectural practice by participating in an internship.
Topics Covered:
Introduction to landscape practice
Employment
Licensing exam
Business law
Instructional Methods:
Requirements for Credit:
As part of this class students will be required to build and complete their school portfolio, write a short term paper, and write and present a chapter report from the business law book. Since this will be a fast-paced class, full attendance is highly encouraged. This course is offered as 2 units (standard) or 3 units (with optional internship, if internships are available).
3 UNIT REQUIREMENTS + EVALUATION
LD ARCH 277 (Hill)
Resilience and Urban Development
(3) Methods for increasing urban sustainability and resilience through decentralized infrastructure design and appropriate development site design, with a focus on flooding and fire as drivers of urban adaptation at the block and district scales. Comparative frameworks for urban infrastructure systems analysis and resilience. Basic quantitative skills for flooding-related block, street and district design. Lessons-learned from key international and regional design adaptations for fire, flooding and sea level rise.
Extended Course Description
The changing global climate is increasing the vulnerability of cities to fire, flooding and earthquake damage. These events will occur along with new health risks from summer heat waves and water quality problems, challenging urban resilience. Resilience has been defined as the capacity to recover quickly from disasters. But since global climate change will effectively be permanent, the concept of urban resilience has been broadened to include strategies for adaptation to permanent change. The cost of urban adaptation to this new climate has been estimated in the trillions of $USD, for the US alone. How can new investments in existing urban districts support adaptation, create value, and protect the health of vulnerable communities?
This course will provide a framework for strategic adaptation. The instructor will shape an initial approach, then bring in experts who have developed strategies for resilience at the district and site-scale. Our primary focus will be on adaptation to flooding, but we will also consider overlapping strategies that promote walkability, transit use, improved water and air quality, and resilience to fire. Major infrastructure system investments are also a key topic, since changes to these systems will alter the physical and financial requirements for site design and development. We will examine new insurance and governance approaches, and place US and international resilience practices into a comparative framework.
Students will develop a framework for strategic thinking about adaptation. District and site-scale case studies will allow them to refine their framework in comparison to a real situation. Readings, lectures, in-class exercises and guest speakers will provide the larger planning context, introducing students to resilience as a concept in contemporary environmental regulation, insurance, governance, and social justice concerns. The course will meet weekly to discuss readings and review cases of adaptation in the urban environment. In order to introduce contrasting perspectives, guest speakers may come from the development industry, from fields that study climate adaptation, from risk and finance, or other related disciplines.
LD ARCH 287 (Cooper)
Advanced Landscape Visualization
(3) Course Format: This course will explore landscape representation through a variety of drawing types and conventions, across a range of scales, and through interplay between analog and digital media. The semester is composed of three units. Each unit explores topics central to the San Francisco Bay Area and introduces students to new tools and techniques that reinforce strategies for effectively communicating ideas for the landscape. Given our proximity to the San Francisco Bay and its surrounding ecological, infrastructural, and social systems, each exercise is intended to guide students to observe, image, and communicate landscape strategies for the Bay.
Course Objectives
Conceptual
Technical Skills
Research
LD ARCH 289 (Dronova)
Applied Remote Sensing
(3) This course consists of one lecture and one computer lab per week introducing fundamental principles and methods of environmental remote sensing and their practical applications. We will explore strategies for working with different types of remote sensing data and extracting image-based landscape information for various environmental research and planning objectives. This course focuses largely on local to regional scale applications of remote sensing in ecology, environmental planning and design, civil & environmental engineering and natural resource management. Specific objectives include:
The course grade will be based on:
LD ARCH 296 (Staff)
Directed Dissertation Research
(1-12: SU) Course Format: Hours to be arranged. Three hours per unit. Prerequisites: Advancement to Ph.D. candidacy. Credit option: Course may be repeated for credit. Grading option: Must be taken on a satisfactory/unsatisfactory basis. Description: Open to qualified students who have been advanced to candidacy for the Ph.D. degree and are directly engaged upon the doctoral dissertation.
LD ARCH 297 (Staff)
Supervised Field Study
(2-3: SU) Course Format: Hours to be arranged. Prerequisites: Graduate standing and consent of instructor and sponsor. Credit option: Any combination of 295 or 297 may be taken for a total of six units maximum toward the M.L.A. degree. Grading option: Must be taken on a satisfactory/unsatisfactory basis. Description: Supervised experience relative to specific aspects of practice in landscape architecture and/or environmental planning. Regular meetings with faculty and outside sponsor as well as final report required. See departmental information sheet for other limitations.
LD ARCH 298 (Staff)
Group Study
(1-4) Course Format: Hours to be arranged. Credit option: Course may be repeated for credit. Description: Special group studies. Topics to be announced at the beginning of each semester.
LD ARCH 300 (Staff)
Supervised Teaching in Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning
(2: SU) Course Format: Hours to be arranged. Prerequisites: Graduate standing and appointment as a Teaching Assistant. Credit option: Course may be repeated for credit. Grading option: Must be taken on a satisfactory/unsatisfactory basis. Description: Supervised teaching experience in undergraduate courses. Regular meetings with faculty sponsor. See departmental sheet for other limitations.
LD ARCH 602 (Staff)
Individual Study for Doctoral Students
(1-8: SU) Course Format: Hours to be arranged. Prerequisites: For candidates for doctor's degree. Credit option: Course may be repeated for credit. Course does not satisfy unit or residence requirements for doctoral degree. Grading option: Must be taken on a satisfactory/unsatisfactory basis. Description: Individual study in consultation with the major field adviser, intended to provide an opportunity for qualified students to prepare themselves for the various examinations required of candidates for the Ph.D.
- Ensure completion of thesis/professional report in time to graduate in May.
- Introduce fine-tuning editorial, graphic, and layout skills.
- Clarify and navigate format rules of the LAEP Department and Graduate Division.
- Support student efforts to submit for departmental and college prizes and fellowships.
- Present final work to faculty, invited reviewers, students, families, and friends.
- Structure of a landscape architectural consultancy
- Design Team Structure, prime and sub-consultants
- Project implementation SD, DD, CE, CA
- Specifications
- RFPs and Proposals
- Fee Proposals
- Assembling a Portfolio
- Resumes and Interviewing
- Salary ranges
- Content
- Strategy
- Insurance
- Contracts
- Licensure
- Guest Interviews: Up to 6 landscape professionals practicing in a variety of job positions will be invited to speak and answer questions.
- Course Lectures and Discussion: Pertaining to how a practice functions, and projects are brought in and completed.
- Internship: Each student will participate in an internship with a landscape architectural firm for a total of 64 hours in the semester.
- Readings: Business Law for Landscape Architects by Bill Beery.
- Portfolio completion 20%
- Term paper: “Aspirations for a Career in Landscape Arch.” 20%
- Class attendance & contribution to class discussion 20%
- Book chapter reports 20%
- Internship evaluation 20%
- Develop a design language through visual descriptions of site and landscape
- Cultivate techniques for visually communicating interpretations and agendas for landscape
- Learn site observation skills through sketching, photography, and film
- Master techniques for visualizing processes and qualities (temporal cycles, atmosphere) through static and dynamic media
- Develop and refine skills in digital software (Adobe Creative Suite, ArcGIS, Rhino, and Adobe AfterEffects)
- Develop broad knowledge about theory and history of landscape representation
- Synthesize knowledge into coherent expository writing to structure visual material
- Learn to create visual landscape narratives through empirical, observational, and historical research
- Learn practical skills and techniques to extracting landscape information from remote sensing data as image interpretation, classification, accuracy assessment, mapping and change analysis;
- Become familiar with different types of data and instruments in remote sensing and learn how to choose the optimal remote sensing data and procedure for various landscape and environmental analysis applications;
- Explore traditional and novel remote sensing techniques and their use in landscape planning, environmental studies and natural resource management;
- Develop the capacity to work with different studies.
- Laboratory reports (50%): assigned weekly at each Thursday lab, due at the beginning of next Thursday’s class unless otherwise specified). Your lowest laboratory report score will be dropped for the final grade calculation.
- Term paper (20%): a 20-25 page manuscript written as either 1) literature review about specific remote sensing application or 2) your own case study (e.g., analysis for your thesis or dissertation work). Specific instructions and details on this assignment will be provided early in the semester in class.
- Final exam (25%): takehome, open-book, written exam assignment that will be based largely on theoretica concepts, practical examples and readings, and will not require the use of remote sensing software.
- Class attendance & participation (5%).