About the Department of Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning
UC Berkeley’s Department Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning’s mission is to engage in research and teaching that will inspire and inform our profession through innovative design and planning.
We’re known for the design of compelling landscapes that promote ecological integrity and social equity. We emphasize critical thinking about the ecological, social, cultural, and visual performance of landscape spaces and systems. Our research, practice, and curricula set high standards for analytical ability, creativity, aesthetics, and practical understanding. As a result, our graduates are prepared to serve as national and international landscape design and planning leaders, building thriving communities in a world of rapid political, economic, and environmental change.
Our Multidisciplinary Faculty
The department faculty engages in research and teaching across a range of landscape scales from downtown plazas to wilderness areas to build inclusive, vibrant cities, construct resilient metropolitan ecologies, restore degraded ecosystems, and meet the challenge of climate change. The department particularly emphasizes the application of social and ecological science in the design and planning process, with the intent of building landscapes that responsibly serve both society and the environment in the long term.
Field studies complements our classroom teaching, and thus our students attend community meetings, wade through streams, survey urban vegetation, observe construction sites, construct pilot projects, and sketch Bay Area landscapes. With the aid of research and endowment funds, our student participate in projects throughout California and the U.S., Mexico, Egypt, France, Portugal, Thailand, Japan, Korea, Ecuador, Italy, and China.
Within the rich resources of the Berkeley campus as a whole, our multidisciplinary faculty have expertise in design, planning, urbanism, history, sustainability, hydrology, ecology, geographic information science, landscape modeling, and social practices. The depth and reach of our pedagogy well prepares students to join design and planning consulting firms, public agencies, and non-profit organizations as well as to hold teaching positions at leading institutions around the world.
Established in 1913, our department benefits from a compelling legacy of excellence and we look forward to the next century of inspiration and innovation.
Blake Garden
Blake Garden is the Department of Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning’s landscape laboratory. It’s the ideal spot for hands-on study and experimentation for MLA students — occupying more than 10 acres of rolling terrain in Kensington, featuring large rock outcroppings, several reaches of Cerrito Creek, and sweeping views of the San Francisco Bay. As an MLA student, you’ll take your plant identification courses here and have opportunities to site independent study projects in the garden. And only students in UC Berkeley’s Department of Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning get to celebrate their graduations at this special spot.
Contact
Department of Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning
University of California, Berkeley
202 Bauer Wurster Hall # 2000
Berkeley, CA 94720-2000
510.642.2962 Phone 711 CA Relay
510.643.6166 Fax
Graduate advising: laepgrad@berkeley.edu
Undergraduate advising; 250 Bauer Wurster Hall; cedadvising@berkeley.edu; 510.642.4943 711 CA Relay