Undergraduate Student Learning Initiative
The Undergraduate Student Learning Initiative (USLI) is a campus-wide initiative to support departments in The Undergraduate Student Learning Initiative (USLI) is a campus-wide initiative to support departments in establishing educational goals and evaluation procedures for all undergraduate programs. As a result of the initiative, faculty and students have a shared understanding of the purpose of the major and what graduating seniors are expected to know or to be able to do at the end of their course of study. The initiative is in keeping with the fundamental principle at Berkeley that the evaluation of student achievement should be locally defined, discipline specific, and faculty-driven.
LAEP Learning Objectives
LAEP Philosophy
The statements below represent the pedagogical intent of the Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning.
- We must educate our students to imagine, re-invent, renew, and reconsider how the public landscape is a part of our present and how it will continue to be a part of our future.
- The landscapes we create should be beautiful, ecologically constructive, socially vital, and built to endure.
- Through an understanding of aesthetic, ecological, and social variables, our graduates can remedy degraded landscapes, shape resilient ecosystems, and make cities compelling for all citizens.
- Ecological design and planning will have greatest impact in the urban landscape. “Green urbanism” can provide an alternative to the loss of agricultural and wild landscapes by creating evocative settings for everyday life.
- Every student is an individual rather than a product of an assembly-line education. Our programs should guide each student to develop a unique role in facilitating landscape change.
- Students should be exposed to passion and creativity. Their education should be grounded in hands-on field study as well as in theory, methods, and studio projects.
- Landscape architects and environmental planners must be “at the table” for both grassroots and high- level decisions on the landscape. By doing so, we will make possible innovative and inspirational places that enable a just democracy.
- Landscape craft must support our commitment to the collective public landscape.
Undergraduate Learning Objectives
The learning objectives knowledge, skills and abilities common to the theory and practice of landscape architecture that our undergraduate students are expected to acquire:
- To communicate landscape architecture concepts and ideas effectively in graphic, written, and verbal formats.
- To understand the relationship of landscape architecture history and theory of landscape architecture to contemporary practice.
- To acquire knowledge of the basic fundamentals of landscape design, particularly the implications of social and natural factors.
- To apply landscape design to a range of sites and scales.
We are committed to teaching our students to bring their knowledge and creativity to the making of the public landscape. As such we teach them how to be part of democratic decision-making at all levels. Further, we hope our students will self-actualize through their educational process while being grounded in theory, research methods, field based analyses, construction craft, and studio design.
Undergraduate Curriculum
The LAEP program leads to the A.B. degree in landscape architecture and provides the necessary education for students interested in entry-level professional practice. To graduate, LAEP undergraduate students are required to take Environmental Design prerequisite courses; our core curriculum courses (“Required Courses”); upper-division courses outside the major but inside the College of Environmental Design; and a choice of electives. These courses meet the department’s learning objectives as follows.
Key to Category Abbreviations
F = Fundamentals
C = Communication
H = History
T = Theory
NF = Natural Factors
SF = Social Factors
A = Applied Technology
| CED Prerequisites for Landscape Architecture Students | F | C | H | T | NF | SF | A |
| ENV DES 1: People and Environmental Design | X | X | |||||
| ENV DES 5: Introduction to Visual Representation and Drawing | X | X | |||||
| LA 1: Designing a Green Future | X | X | |||||
| Required Core Courses | F | C | H | T | NF | SF | A |
| LD ARCH 101: Fundamentals of Landscape Design (5) | X | X | X | X | X | ||
| LD ARCH 102: Case Studies in Landscape Design (5) | X | X | X | X | X | ||
| LD ARCH 103: Energy, Fantasy, and Form (5) | X | X | X | X | X | ||
| LD ARCH 110: Ecological Analysis (4) | X | X | X | ||||
| LD ARCH 112: Landscape Plants: Identification and Use (4) | X | X | X | ||||
| LD ARCH 120: Topographic Form and Design Technique (3) | X | ||||||
| LD ARCH 121: Design in Detail: Materials and Construction (4) | X | X | |||||
| LD ARCH 133: Drawn from the Field (3) | X | X | X | ||||
| LD ARCH 134B: Drawing Workshop (3) | X | X | X | ||||
| LD ARCH 135: Sacred Landscapes (3) | X | X | |||||
| LD ARCH 170: History and Literature of Landscape Architecture (3) | X | X | |||||
| Required Three Upper-Division Courses Outside Major but Inside College | |||||||
| F | C | H | T | NF | SF | A | |
| Three courses, totaling 9 units, are required for all students with majors in CED to give students a broader approach to environmental design (see upper-division course offerings in architecture, city and regional planning, environmental design, and visual studies) | X | X | X | X | X | X | X |
| Elective Courses | F | C | H | T | NF | SF | A |
| LD ARCH 111: Plants in Design (3) | X | X | |||||
| LD ARCH 122: Hydrology for Planners (4) | X | X | X | X | |||
| LD ARCH 130: Sustainable Landscapes and Cities (4) | X | X | |||||
| LD ARCH 140: Design for Social Sustainability (new name) (3) | X | X | X | ||||
| LD ARCH 160: Professional Practice (2) | X | X | X | ||||
| LD ARCH C171: The American Designed Landscape Since 1850 (3) | X | X | X | ||||
| LD ARCH C188: Geographic Information Systems (4) | X | X |