Landscape Architecture & Regional Planning (LARP)

LARP 5010 Studio I

The first core design studio focuses on ways of exploring, recording, and representing landscape—with an emphasis on material, space, time, and measure—through a range of physical engagements, drawings, and constructions. Students then use these explorations to re-imagine a transformed set of spatial and temporal conditions. Design work bridges digital and analog methods to establish and build hybrid forms of representation and making intended to capture the unique qualities of the landscape. Studio projects evolve through the coupling of site experiences and representational strategies that document and explore those experiences, lessons learned through precedent studies, and formal and conceptual exercises intended to develop new ways of seeing the landscape. Students explore and develop landscape-based skills that characterize and expand the discipline of landscape architecture as a valuable contributor in the entangled cultural, ecological, and political dialogues of our spatial world.

Fall

2 Course Units

LARP 5020 Studio II

This foundation design studio explores the relationship among sites, drawings, models and the making of landscape architectural projects. Sites are fairly large in size and present a complex set of issues, including fragmentation, lack of access, and contamination. Through the design of a park, students test and refine the relationship among project concept, modes of visualization, and project formation (organizational and material). The objective for the studio is to develop an informed and imaginative response to the site in order to create new relationships among the site, its immediate edges and the larger neighborhood or region.

Spring

Prerequisite: LARP 5010

2 Course Units

LARP 5110 Workshop I: Ecology and Built Landscapes

This course explores a sequence of sites extending from the Atlantic Ocean to the Appalachian Mountains that illustrates the changing geology and topography of the regional physiographic provinces, including the Atlantic Coastal Plain, Piedmont, and Valley and Ridge. Moving westward along the transect, field trips to natural areas and constructed sites will highlight the diversity of regional plant communities ranging from primary dune to salt marsh, serpentine Virginia pine-oak forest to seepage wetland, and more. Analysis of the inter-connections between the underlying geology, topography, hydrology, soils, vegetation, wildlife, and human interventions will reveal patterns reflecting process and demonstrate key ecological and cultural systems and processes through the production of field notebooks as well as large-scale measured drawings. Ultimately, students will develop a vocabulary (recognition, identification, and nomenclature) of the materials of landscape, its substance, its ecology, and its changing nature, owing to place and time. Note: There are seven full-day field visits as part of this course. All other classes will be held in the classroom and studio. In the classroom, we will focus on group work, site analysis, and representation, culminating in a final field book.

Fall

1 Course Unit

LARP 5120 Workshop II: Landform and Planting Design

Workshop II explores two elemental tools in the practice of landscape architecture–landform and planting design–and their role in placemaking. The shaping and sculpting of the land is both art and science. Workshop II aims to provide an appreciation of landform as an evocative component in design vocabulary, a critical tool in resolving design challenges, and essential in addressing site performance and functionality. The basic techniques and strategies of grading design (slopes, terraces, water management, grade change devices such as walls and steps) will be introduced and applied so that grading design becomes an integral part of the students' design approach. Lecture, field trips, modeling, in-class exercises, and group projects will be used. The planting component provides students with a working overview of the principles and processes of designing with plants from an ecological and artistic standpoint. The natural distribution of plants, concepts of plant community and successional patterns, and the relationship of planting and topography will be used as the framework for planting design as a dynamic system. The role of plants as a key element in the structural design of the landscape will be explored through a combination of modeling, plan and section drawing, temporal studies, writing, field trips, and case studies. Emphasis will be placed on process and evolution: the temporality of planting (daily, seasonal, and annual changes), establishment and maintenance of plantings, and the process of planting design. During the first week of May, a five-day field ecology course focuses on techniques of urban revitalization, sustainable land use, reclamation, and restoration. The field trips offer insight into the diversity of approaches to using plants to promote positive environmental change.

Spring

Prerequisite: LARP 5110

1 Course Unit

LARP 5130 Workshop II: Landform and Planting Design Plants Audit

Workshop II combines two of the most elemental tools in the practice of landscape architecture: landform and planting design. Grading - the shaping and sculpting of the landform - is both art and science, and thus Workshop II aims to provide an appreciation of landform as an evocative component in the design vocabulary as well as a critical tool in solving difficult design problems. The basic techniques and strategies of grading design (slopes, terraces, water management, grade change devices) will be introduced, practiced and reinforced, so that grading design becomes an integral part of the students' design approach. Lecture, field trips, modeling, in-class exercises, and group projects will be used. The Planting component provides students with a working overview of the principles and processes of planting design. Plants will be considered both as individual elements and as part of larger dynamic systems. The natural distribution of plants, concepts of plant community and successional patterns, and the relationship of planting an topography will be used as the initial framework for planting design. Planting design typologies will be examined as an outgrowth of these "natural" patterns. The role of plants as a key element in the structural design of the landscape will be explored through a combination of modeling, plan and section drawing, temporal studies, writing, field trips and case studies. Emphasis will be placed on process and evolution: the temporality of planting (daily, seasonal and annual changes), establishment and maintenance of plantings, and the process of planting design. During the first week of May, a five-day field ecology course focuses on techniques of urban revitalization, sustainable land use, reclamation, and restoration. The field trips offer insight into the diversity of approaches to using plants to promote positive environmental change.

Fall

0 Course Units

LARP 5330 Media I: Thinking, Drawing, Making

Media I introduces students to the discipline of landscape architecture through representation. To represent landscape is to enter into its shifting processes, to trace what is fleeting as much as what is enduring. Each week students will learn techniques and workflows combining analog, digital, and time-based media. Through abstraction, translation, and iteration they will learn how representations generate new ways of seeing, and how media informs the design of landscapes. In support of these technical skills, a series of lectures and readings will situate representation within the history and practice of landscape architecture. This course provides an open forum for reflection, critique, and dialogue. It encourages students to explore multiple modes of representation through technical skills, creative workflows, and careful curation.

Fall

1 Course Unit

LARP 5350 History/Theory I: Reading Landscapes

This course surveys landscape histories from a distinct perspective—to explore landscape processes and their knowledges over time, to think about the material cultures of landscape, to better understand changing landscapes, and to understand the stakes of landscapes now. Global in method, though with developments in North America at its center, this class orients students to landscape histories and the landscape studies of found and designed landscapes through geology, pedology, physiography, climate, vegetation, ecology, and more. Episodic rather than survey-like or encyclopedic, the course moves chronologically, thematically, and regionally, placing landscapes alongside other historical and interdisciplinary fields and voices, focusing on landscape processes that intersect with human (and nonhuman) lives. Each place, discipline, field, author, or object we encounter is understood in a conversation to comprehend systemic environmental change, ideas of nature, ecological politics, landscape transformation, and more. The class offers tools grounded in the humanities for interpreting found and designed landscapes, such as different ways of periodizing the past, narrating diverse voices and perspectives, and mapping historical change. In addition to reading, analyzing, and discussing texts, the course includes short collaborative projects involving archival visits, short readings, and engaged research site tours in which students are asked to participate. After completing this course, students should have the skills to research and interpret landscapes over time.

Fall

1 Course Unit

LARP 5400 History/Theory II: Writing Landscapes

We inhabit a climate-changed—and changing—world. So, how do practitioners, designers, researchers, historians, artists, and writers make sense of it? How do we witness, notice, or respond to changing landscapes? In diverse writing methods woven throughout this semester, the course practices observation and relationship-building through writing with the living world. The course centers on key topics in contemporary landscape discussions, in addition to reading, analyzing, and discussing texts. Pacing is critical in tuning to shifting landscapes—spending time in a place learning, visiting diverse locations, understanding the complexities between categories of place and time, and knowing nuanced language and words that describe or have described change in the 20th and 21st centuries. The active course includes site visits, short readings, and engaged writing workshops with leading landscape scholars. The course assignments teach how to read landscapes and write about them, think about time and place together, how writing in and with history requires different modes of evidence and witnessing, and that history and writing are active conversations in landscape studies—through the academic essay and beyond. After completing this course, students should have the skills to interpret and write about landscapes over time. This is an Academically-Based Community Service (ABCS) course.

Spring

1 Course Unit

LARP 5420 Media II: Fundamentals of 3D Modeling

Continuing the sequence of the Landscape Architecture media classes, this course will provide students with the techniques to explore and examine precision surface profiles and land forming strategies, in both physical and digital models. These models provide a basis to speculate on what processes and programs might be engendered or instigated. Rhino will be the primary modeling platform. Associated plug-ins of Grasshopper, Rhino Terrain, Sonic, and Bongo will help extend the toolset. GIS will facilitate the collection and analysis of extent data. The Adobe Creative Cloud will also be used for documenting and expressing modeling processes through static and time-based visualizations.

Spring

Prerequisite: LARP 5330

1 Course Unit

LARP 5430 Media III: The Cartographic Imagination

How we draw spatial relations informs how we think about them. And how we think about spatial relations informs how we draw them. This is the fundamental cartographic enterprise. Stated so simply, it highlights how cartographic analysis and cartographic depiction go hand-in-hand and can help us explore design’s potential for both critique and world-making. In Media III, students will explore how concepts of space—its nature, organization, and our experience of it—are reflected in, and reinforced by, our drawings. This will include a critical examination of existing spatial datasets—their categories and conceits—as well as the development of new categories that emerge from our drawings. In addition to this theoretical exploration, Media III will provide technical foundations in spatial analysis and representation techniques that combine ArcMap, Rhino, and the Adobe Creative Suite. Students will learn to analyze not only what currently exist but to also determine what may exist. Likewise, students will learn conventional cartographic techniques, gaining confidence in their ability to experiment with these conventions to arrive at new forms of spatial representation. By combining spatial analysis with experimental drawings, students will explore how representations actively support our design imagination at various scales, while also emphasizing the creation of detailed, beautiful, and evocative drawings that communicate meaning.

Fall

1 Course Unit

LARP 6010 Studio III

The third core design studio focuses on current environmental and social issues in the regional urban landscape, with an emphasis on areas significantly impacted by human activities. The studio explores issues of environmental justice and equity, industries and labor, green gentrification, pollution and remediation, novel ecosystems, climate adaptation, and coastal advance/retreat. Students conduct field visits, develop critical site analyses, and propose spatialized design propositions. Research, representation, and design projections will engage with multiple scales of action: from the miniature to the panoramic, from the botanical to the regional. Students in Studio III will develop methodologies for understanding and communicating the complexities of a multi-scalar site, while working iteratively on design strategies for spatializing projected design futures. The studio emphasizes systemic thinking at the regional scale—revealing and understanding systems and their overlaps as interacting and entangled—and students will explore iterative and projective methodologies leading to spatial propositions across a gradient of multiple, nested scales. Students will record, describe, deconstruct, reveal, and reimagine selected systems and their overlaps. Through a research-informed design process, students develop methodologies for selecting a territory and working iteratively on design strategies for spatializing projected futures.

Fall

2 Course Units

LARP 6020 Studio IV

As the final core studio within the MLA sequence, this studio has a pedagogical focus on equipping students with the capacity to engage in the shaping of the built environment of the city through physical urban design—specifically, the physical design of a city’s public realm. The studio imparts students with five fundamental capacities essential to the contemporary practice of landscape architecture in an existing urban setting. These include 1) an ability to read and evaluate the built environment/physical urban form; 2) understanding the non-physical systems that structure the built environment; 3) familiarity with the transformative function of the public realm; 4) capacity to define and articulate an urban design proposal; 5) elevated familiarity with the built environment of Philadelphia. For the purposes of the studio, students develop proposed interventions through a FRAMEWORK—a collection of interconnected urban elements and actions composed and organized in such a way as to facilitate both short- and long-term urban transformation. Students are asked to take an assets-based approach, emphasizing both recognizable and latent opportunities already present within a community, affirming the unique characteristics of a place.

Spring

2 Course Units

LARP 6110 Workshop III: Site Engineering and Water Management

Building upon the skills and concepts developed in Workshops I and II, this course explores ways that designed natural systems (landform, hydrology, soils, and planting) can be used to address site performance and functionality. Through the lens of water, students explore ways to layer and weave natural systems with people and program. Topics such as green infrastructure and remediation showcase the potential of designed natural systems as essential components of resilient and meaningful placemaking. Students learn ways to communicate design intent through technical drawing and documentation. Lectures, case studies, field trips, and focused design exercises will enable students to develop facility with the tools, processes, and metrics by which landscape systems are designed, evaluated, built, and maintained. There is a co-requisite lab section for all MLA II students who enter with a Bachelors degree in Architecture.

Spring

1 Course Unit

LARP 6120 Workshop IV: Professional Practice

Workshop IV focuses on landscape architecture as a practice and as a profession, showcasing a broad range of traditional and nontraditional modes of practice. Students are prompted to be intentional in navigating early career decisions: setting goals, exploring personal and professional priorities, and cultivating a community of practice. The basic building blocks—forming (or joining) a firm and getting work—then lead into explorations of various ways to practice and engage with the profession of landscape architecture. The process of communicating design intent, development, and coordination through various phases of documentation, and how those documents are used to bring a project to fruition, are presented. The course examines the landscape architect’s role in the construction process through visits to construction sites and nearby built work. We will also engage diverse practitioners in student-led conversations that will emphasize the expansive nature of the discipline, reflecting upon careers that span research, advocacy, entrepreneurship, and design. Students will also be presented with tools that will help articulate and strengthen their voice and direct their career decisions. Development of their portfolios and initial considerations for their journey after graduating conclude the semester-long exploration of the profession.

Fall

Prerequisite: LARP 6110

1 Course Unit

LARP 6650 Case Studies and Urban Design Explorations

Participants in this course will become familiarized with a diversity of iconic urban references from all continents, while acquiring skills that will facilitate planning and design processes, appreciating the value of interdisciplinary, multi-scaler initiatives, and the transformative contributions of city planning and urban design/placemaking. It is a dynamic class in which each session is centered on a particular topic (see list below), combining class discussions on case studies presented by the instructor, guest lecturers, and teams of students. Interdisciplinary groups also are asked to deliver short planning/design exercises -without the pressure of the studios-, allowing to rapidly identify existing site conditions, design opportunities, delivering their proposals with compelling narratives, strategic moves, graphics, models, and verbal communication. Course topics include: From territory to site-specific; On the public realm; The rehabilitation of historic districts; Mobility/infrastructure and public space; The self-constructed city; Community and urban design; Contending forces of nature; Ecological urbanism; New town planning; Urban art. The class also organizes walking tours in Philadelphia. A final exhibit of the work delivered by the students will be held in Meyerson’s Lower Gallery.

Spring

1 Course Unit

LARP 6741 Curricular Practical Training: Academic Year

This course provides international Master of Landscape Architecture students the opportunity for practical training in architecture in the United States (CPT). The course develops critical thinking about the organization, operation, and ethics of professional practice in city planning. This course will allow international MLA students to work in an internship in the United States during the academic year without shortening their limited OPT time. The course is offered for .20 course units. The employment must relate to the major and the experience must be part of the program of study. Course enrollment is by permit only.

0.2 Course Units

LARP 6850 Environmental Readings

In this seminar, we will explore the green thread in America thought and letters and analyze its influence on how we shape our environments through design and planning. The course has three parts. Throughout, the influence of literature on design and planning theory will be explored. The first part will focus on three most important theorists in environmental planning and landscape architecture: Frederick Law Olmsted Sr., Charles Eliot, and Ian McHarg. The second part of the course will critically explore current theories in environmental planning and landscape architecture. The topics include: frameworks for cultural landscape studies, the future of the vernacular, ecological design and planning, sustainable and regenerative design, the languages of landscapes, and evolving views of landscape aesthetics and ethics. In the third part of the course, students will build on the readings to develop their own theory for ecological planning or, alternatively, landscape architecture. While literacy and inquiry are addressed throughout the course, critical thinking is especially important for this final section.

Fall

Also Offered As: ARCH 6850, CPLN 6850

1 Course Unit

LARP 7010 Studio V

These advanced elective studios provide opportunities for focused exploration of particular themes in contemporary landscape architecture. Important emerging and accomplished designers, often from divergent points-of-view, interests and backgrounds, are invited to run these studios. Collaborative options (between Landscape and the Departments of Architecture or City Planning) are sometimes offered across the School. In addition to our own faculty who offer some of these studios (Fabiani Giannetto, Gouverneur, Marcinkoski, Mathur, M'Closkey, Neises, Olin, Pevzner, Sanders, Tomlin), visitors have included Paolo Burgi (Switzerland), Peter Latz (Munich), Bernard Lassus (Paris), Margie Ruddick (Philadelphia), Chris Reed (Boston), Peter Beard (London), Nicholas Quennell (New York), Ken Smith (New York), Raymond Gastil (New York), Alessandro Tagliolini (Italy), Ignacio Bunster (Philadelphia), Perry Kulper (Los Angeles),James Wines (New York), Lee Weintraub (New York), Charles Waldheim (Chicago), Stanislaus Fung (Australia), Dennis Wedlick (New York), Sandro Marpillero (New York), Peter Connolly (Australia), and former associate professor Anita Berrizbeitia. More recent visitors have been Claire Fellman (New York), Catherine Mosbach (Paris), Nanako Umemoto/Neil Cook (New York), Valerio Morabito (Italy), Carol and Colin Franklin (Philadelphia), Keith Kaseman (Philadelphia), Silvia Benedito (New York), Claudia Taborda (Lisbon), Mark Thomann (New York), Jerry Van Eyck (New York), and Martin Rein-Cano (Berlin).

Fall

2 Course Units

LARP 7020 Studio VI

Spring

2 Course Units

LARP 7040 Urban Design Research Studio

This course is a requirement for students enrolled in the Certificate of Urban Design. The Urban Design Research Studio (UDRC) is a capstone educational experience open to students of architecture, planning, landscape architecture and historic preservation in PennDesign. The studio's focus is how design intelligence can be applied to complex urban problems which are at once systemic and spatial. Reaching across scales and across disciplines the studio immerses students in the social, economic, political, ecological and aesthetic complexity of the contemporary city in a way that interweaves the speculative quality of the design process with the analytical and evidence-based empiricism of urban reseach. Interdisciplinary collaboration is the studio's modus operandi and its purpose is to develop techniques and strategies by which contemporary cities can become not only metabolically more efficient but also more edifying of the human spirit in the 21st century. Acceptance into the studio is based on interview and portfolio with priority placements given to students enrolled in the Urban Design Certificate Program.

Spring

2 Course Units

LARP 7100 Implementation of Urban Design

This course is a requirement for students enrolled in the Certificate of Urban Design. With a focus on contemporary major cities this subject charts the various ways in which urban design is typically conceived, procured, administered and ultimately delivered. From the very conception of a project to its completion, the various methods and avenues through which contemporary cities are planned, designed, and constructed are examined from multiple perspectives so that students become familiar with the myriad issues and main actors involved in urban development. Though exemplary case studies the subject offers a comprehensive understanding of the complexities and contingencies of contemporary city making, placing a particular emphasis on the role of the urban designer as a practical, ethical and visionary agent of change. This course may open to other interested PennDesign students if there is space and with permission of the instructor.

Spring

1 Course Unit

LARP 7200 Topics in Representation

In these advanced representation courses the work extends to new ways of documenting and seeing landscape. These courses are open to all interested School of Design students who have previous drawing experience or have taken foundation studios. Recent topics have been: Landscape Representation (fall annually), instructors: Valerio Morabito; Terrains of Wetness (spring 2017-2020), instructors: Anuradha Mathur, Matthew Neff; Landscape Drawing, instructor: Laurie Olin (spring 2014); Traces and Inscriptions (spring 2013), instructors: Anuradha Mathur, Matthew Neff.

Fall or Spring

Prerequisite: LARP 5010 OR LARP 5330 OR LARP 6010 OR ARCH 5010 OR ARCH 5320 OR ARCH 6010

1 Course Unit

LARP 7201 Topics in Representation

Prerequisite: LARP 5010 OR LARP 5330 OR LARP 6010 OR ARCH 5010 OR ARCH 5320 OR ARCH 6010

1 Course Unit

LARP 7300 Topics in Professional Practice

These seminar courses explore ideas and methods in current landscape architectural practice. They include instruction in professional procedures, project development, leadership, and professional identity. They include visits to construction sites, professional offices and archives. Recent topics have been: Transformational Leadership (fall annually), instructor: Lucinda Sanders; Unruly Practices (spring 2021), instructors: Rebecca Popowsky and Sarai Williams; The Practice of Landscape Architecture (spring 2021, fall 2021).

Fall or Spring

1 Course Unit

LARP 7302 Studies in Professional Practice: Inquiry and Research for Transformation

This course is designed for students who seek to bring about transformation. Using inquiry and research as the vehicle for intellectual growth and the development of self, the semester is dedicated to bringing forward the voices of emerging landscape architects thereby enhancing the efficacy of ambitions in the context of our professional milieu. This is the beginning of a lifelong practice. Whether embarking on a first-time journey of research and inquiry or continuing an established trajectory of research, the cohort works together in dialogue offering mutual support and peer review during lively and probing weekly seminar discussions and presentations. Topics of research and the development of the research questions are explored during the first half of the semester and are refined and crystalized in the second half, including the expansion of an in-depth literature review and the design of the research. Because the researcher can likely never be fully separated from the research, this semester long investigation becomes a powerful mechanism for developing voices of leadership directed toward positive multi-scalar transformations.

1 Course Unit

LARP 7340 Designing a Green New Deal: From Concept to Program

This advanced social science and design seminar is about mobilizing expert knowledge to develop transformative policy ideas to make the Green New Deal come alive. We'll look at cutting edge social science and design scholarship on the problems we're trying to solve, and the successes and failures of past efforts at transformative policy. And we'll focus in particular on the built environment. How might a Green New Deal make the physical changes to our infrastructures, homes, energy landscapes, transportation systems, public recreation amenities, care facilities, and more, in ways that slash carbon emissions, increase resiliency, and abolish inequalities of race, class, gender, and nation? That's not a rhetorical question: in this class, we'll assemble knowledge, get into teams, and come up with concrete proposals.

1 Course Unit

LARP 7380 Cultural Landscapes and Landscape Preservation

The course surveys and critically engages the field of cultural landscape studies. Over the semester, we will explore cultural landscape as a concept, theory and model of preservation and design practice; we will read cultural landscape historiography and creative non-fiction; we will examine a range of types (national parks, community gardens, designed landscapes, informal public spaces), and we will map the alternative preservation, planning and design methods that ground cultural landscape studies practically. Readings, class discussions, and projects will draw on cultural geography, environmental history, vernacular architecture, ecology, art, and writing.

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: HSPV 5380

1 Course Unit

LARP 7400 Topics in Digital Media

These courses offer advanced instruction in the uses and applications of various digital media, including Geographical Information Systems, 3-D modeling, video, animation, and web-design. These courses are open to all interested School of Design students who already have a working knowledge of basic digital graphic techniques and with permission of the instructor. Recent topics have been: Sensing and Sensibility (fall 2019-2021), instructors: Keith VanDerSys, Sean Burkholder; Simulated Natures (instructors Keith VanDerSys, Joshua Freese); Digital Fabrication (instructor: Keith VanDerSys); Non-Static Representation: Video, Animation, and Interactive Media (instructor: Todd Montgomery).

Fall or Spring

Prerequisite: LARP 5430

1 Course Unit

LARP 7402 Studies in Digital Media: Sensing and Sensibilities

"In the history of cartography, land and water are linked opposites, mutually supporting and defining, neither viable nor conceivable without the other. Separating land from water is a fundamental cartographic act. This seminar will introduce students to the technical and theoretical ways in which the mutable borders of hydrological exchange are translated into rigid regulatory boundaries, representationally and politically. In today's climate, flooding and sea-level rise have brought the lines between land and water into sharp focus as contested zones. As such, it is imperative for us to interrogate them as categories of knowledge, contingent on the technologies through which demarcation emerges, rather than regarding them as ""natural"" objects ""out there."" Through hands-on field data collection, in-class demos, guest lectures, and readings, this seminar will introduce students to the tools and techniques central to flood modeling and mapping: UAV photogrammetry (surveying), Satellite image classification (sensing), and HEC-HMS hydrologic/ HEC-RAS hydraulics (modeling). While technologically intensive, this course will encourage students to explore a variety of media techniques to creatively express the liminality—material and political—of hydrological representations. As part of Rutgers University’s Megalopolitan Coastal Transformation Hub (MACH) program, this technology seminar will work with an interdisciplinary team that includes The Water Center at Penn, Philadelphia Office of Sustainability, and Drexel’s Civil Engineering faculty. Eligibility: Limited to LARP & CPLN students who have completed LARP 5430: Media III or equivalent; others by permission of the Instructor.

Prerequisite: LARP 5430

1 Course Unit

LARP 7500 Topics in Planting Design

Topics in Planting Design courses explore relevant topics in construction, horticulture and planting design as they relate to contemporary landscape architecture. The aim is to supplement fundamental skills and ideas explored in the core curriculum workshops with more advanced, cutting-edge research, technology and case studies. The teaching faculty are leading practitioners and researchers in the field. These courses are open to all interested Weitzman students.

Fall or Spring

1 Course Unit

LARP 7501 Studies in Planting Design: Understanding Plants

In this course, students will learn about plants from varied perspectives: organismal, applied/practical, aesthetic, environmental, and evolutionary. Utilizing the plant collection of the Morris Arboretum as a living laboratory and the expertise of arboretum staff, this course will bring students, novices and experts alike, to a better understanding of plants. The backbone of this course focuses on temperate woody plant identification and is integrated with sessions dedicated to the fundamentals of plant form, evolution, reproduction, and propagation. Course assessment will be based on weekly practical assignments and two field exams. IMPORTANT: This course takes place at the Morris Arboretum in the Chestnut Hill section of Philadelphia and students are responsible for transporting themselves to and from the arboretum on their own for class each week.

1 Course Unit

LARP 7550 Arboretum Management I: Understanding Plants

In this course, students will learn about plants from an oraganismal perspective, an applied/practical perspective, an aesthetic perspective, an environmental perspective, and an evolutionary perspective. Utilizing the plant collection of the Morris Arboretum as a living laboratory and the expertise of arboretum staff, this course will bring students, novices and experts alike, to a better understanding of plants. Session topics integrate both theoretical and hands-on practical work. Course assessment will be based on weekly practical assignments and two exams. Please note that this course takes place at the Morris Arboretum in the Chestnut Hill section of Philadelphia and students are responsible for transporting themselves to and from the arboretum on their own for class each week. For further information about the course, students may contact Cynthia Skema (cskema@upenn.edu).

Fall

1 Course Unit

LARP 7560 Arboretum Management II: Evaluating Public Gardens

This interdisciplinary course looks at public gardens as a whole, studying these public institutions and their performance in the four major services they undertake: research, horticultural display, conservation and education/outreach. Students, of any level or discipline, begin the course by learning what arboreta and botanic gardens are, how they function, and what role they fill in our society through a series of lecture sessions at the Morris Arboretum. For the remainder of the semester, the students take that knowledge into the field to apply what they have learned and evaluate some of the many public gardens in "America's Garden Capital," the Philadelphia region, with expert instructors from the Morris Arboretum as guides. Course assessment will be based on one exam, and a series of essays pertaining to their garden evaluations. Garden evaluations and the written work can be tailored to a particular subject of interest to a student, if pertinent within the public garden realm. Please note that this course takes place at the Morris Arboretum in the Chestnut Hill section of Philadelphia and students are responsible for transporting themselves to and from the arboretum on their own or to other Philadelphia area public gardens as required for class each week. For further information about the course, students may contact Cynthia Skema (cskema@upenn.edu).

Spring

1 Course Unit

LARP 7600 Topics in Ecological Design

These elective courses explore relevant topics in ecological design and new technologies as they relate to contemporary landscape architecture. The courses explore topics such as ecology, sustainability, habitat restoration, hydrology, green roof and green architecture technology, soil technology, and other techniques pertinent to the construction of ecologically dynamic, functioning landscapes. The teaching faculty are leading practitioners and researchers in the field. These courses are open to all interested Weitzman students. Recent topics have been: Large-Scale Land Reclamation Projects (annually since 2005), instructor: William Young; Green Roof Systems (spring 2010-2014), instructor: Susan Weiler

Fall or Spring

1 Course Unit

LARP 7610 Urban Ecology

This course introduces students to the core concepts, processes, and vocabulary of contemporary urban ecology. It aims to provide a conceptual framework and grounding in an understanding of ecological processes, in order to empower students to develop and critique the function and performance of landscape interventions. Urban ecology describes the interaction of the built and natural environment, looking at both ecology in the city, as well as ecology of the city. Lectures, case studies, critical reading and design exercises will enable students to increase their ability to analyze and interpret ecological systems and processes. By analyzing the application of ecological concepts in the design management of urban landscapes, urban ecology will be explored as a dynamic, human-influenced system. Registration is limited to MLA students in the LARP 601 studio.

Fall

1 Course Unit

LARP 7700 Topics in Landscape Architecture History and Theory

These advanced seminars explore central issues in the history and theory of landscape architecture from the Renaissance to the present day. The focus is upon the cultural context of built works, their relation to conceptual writings (contemporary with the designs as well as modern) and the dialogue between modern professional practice and historical example and method. These courses are open to all interested students. Recent topics include: The Culture of Cultivation (spring 2017), instructor: Raffaella Fabiani Giannetto; Weimar Landscapes (spring 2017), instructors: John Dixon Hunt, Liliane Weissberg; Seminar in American Architecture (spring 2016), instructor: Aaron Wunsch; Therapeutic Landscape (spring 2014), instructor: Aaron Wunsch

Fall or Spring

1 Course Unit

LARP 7710 Celebrations in the Contingent City

This seminar will explore the impact of Philadelphia’s 1876 Centennial Exhibition on the subsequent histories of the neighborhoods adjacent to the West Fairmount Park exhibition site.

Spring

1 Course Unit

LARP 7800 Topics in Theory and Design

These advanced seminars explore ideas in contemporary landscape architectural design and theory. A special link is made between the analysis of built work and text to design practice and the making of projects. Topics include the intersections of art, nature and creativity; practices of analysis and criticism; ideas of urbanism and infrastructure; collaborative ventures and cross-disciplinarity; vision and visuality; and representational structures, both verbal and visual. These courses are open to all interested Weitzman students.

Fall or Spring

1 Course Unit

LARP 7801 Topics in Theory and Design

1 Course Unit

LARP 7802 Topics in Theory and Design

These advanced seminars explore advanced ideas in contemporary landscape architectural design and theory. A special link is made between the analysis of built work and text to design practice and the making of projects. Topics include the intersections of art, nature and creativity; practices of analysis and criticism; ideas of urbanism and infrastructure; collaborative ventures and cross-disciplinarity; vision and visuality; and representational structures, both verbal and visual. These courses are open to all interested Weitzman students.

1 Course Unit

LARP 7803 Topics in Theory and Design

1 Course Unit

LARP 7804 Topics in Theory and Design

1 Course Unit

LARP 7805 Topics in Theory and Design

1 Course Unit

LARP 7890 LARP Summer Institute: Lineages of Contemporary Landscape for 3-Year Students

This one-week course will introduce students to some of the most important strands of contemporary landscape architecture, introduce important landscape vocabulary and terminology in the landscape lexicon, analyze seminal landscape case studies, and hold group discussion on these topics. It will provide an overview of the vocabulary of landscape representation and visualization, introduce students to techniques of landscape representation, and then dive more deeply into the visualization of information, grounded in landscape theory. Students will collaborate on a historical analysis of the various threads of landscape architecture, tracing its relationship to allied fields such as architecture, urbanism, ecology, cultural geography, art, and the landscape garden tradition--and use this analysis as a basis of group discussion about what landscape architecture can accomplish in the world. Along the way, we will talk about how we use visualization as a way to synthesize ideas and as a projective device for testing new concepts and combinations. This course will offer an opportunity to practice research methods, and prepare students for digital collaboration. Course enrollment is by permit only. Please contact landarch@design.upenn.edu.

Summer Term

0 Course Units

LARP 7900 LARP Summer Institute: Natural Systems (3-year Students)

This one-week session for entering three-year MLA students will provide an introduction to the varied physiographic provinces and associated plant communities of the greater Philadelphia region. Through a review of available mapping and on-site study we will characterize and consider the connections between climate, geology, topography, hydrology, soils, vegetation, wildlife, and disturbance, both natural and anthropogenic. With a focus on plants students will begin to develop a familiarity with the local flora (native and non-native) including plant species identification, preferred growing conditions, and potential for use. Field trips will include visits to the Inner Coastal Plain and Piedmont. Course enrollment is by permit only. Please contact landarch@design.upenn.edu.

Summer Term

0 Course Units

LARP 7910 LARP Summer Institute: Landscape Operations (3-year Students)

This one-week course will introduce some of the concepts and techniques for the manipulation of the ground plane, one of the most fundamental skills in landscape architecture. The course will discuss some of the technologies, considerations, and constraints of operating on landform, introduce representation techniques that convey how we describe and communicate landform and topography, and walk students through some simple design exercises to make a set of interventions on a topographic site. Students will develop an appreciation for the spatial implications of landform, for landscape narrative, for the movement of water and people across the landscape, and for the operation of reshaping the ground, through the construction of a set of drawings that walk viewers through students' set of interventions on their site. Work product from this week will serve as the starting point for the following week's course, Introduction to Digital Media for 3-year Students. Please contact landarch@design.upenn.edu.

Summer Term

0 Course Units

LARP 7920 LARP Summer Institute: Introduction to Digital Media (3-year Students)

This four-day introductory course is intended to enable students to orient themselves to digital media facilities, programs, and workflows. The course is focused around daily projects building up to a final pinup. Each daily project illustrates a different set of work paths between digital programs, as well as teaches students how to use different software applications key to the practice of landscape architecture today. The focus of this course is to enable students to understand what each digital software application offers to the landscape process, and how to build change and iteration into digital workflows. Please contact landarch@design.upenn.edu.

Summer Term

0 Course Units

LARP 7930 LARP Summer Institute: Landform and Grading Workshop (2-Year Students)

The reading and shaping of landform is an elemental tool in the practice of landscape architecture. The act of grading design - the shaping and sculpting of landform - is both art and science. This four-day session for entering two-year MLA students aims to provide an appreciation of landform as both an evocative component in the design vocabulary and as a critical tool in resolving difficult design problems. Basic techniques and strategies of grading design are introduced and reinforced, so that grading design becomes an integral part of the student's design approach. This session is intended to provide a concise overview of the principles and process of landform and grading design, and is designed to prepare the entering two-year students for Workshop III. Course enrollment is by permit only. Please contact landarch@design.upenn.edu.

Summer Term

0 Course Units

LARP 7940 LARP Summer Institute: Natural Systems (2-year students)

This five-day session for entering two-year MLA students will provide an introduction to the varied physiographic provinces and associated plant communities of the greater Philadelphia region. Through a review of available mapping and on-site study we will characterize and consider the connections between climate, geology, topography, hydrology, soils, vegetation, wildlife, and disturbance, both natural and anthropogenic. With a focus on plants students will begin to develop a familiarity with the local flora (native and non-native) including plant species identification, preferred growing conditions and potential for use. Field trips will include visits to the Coastal Plan and Piedmont of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Course enrollment is by permit only. Please contact landarch@design.upenn.edu.

Summer Term

0 Course Units

LARP 7950 LARP Summer Institute: Computing Introduction (2-year Students)

This nine-day session introduces the entering two-year MLA students to digital media as the primary mode of design visual communication. The course provides a short, yet intensive, hands-on inquiry into the production and expression of digital media that is essential for all designers. Through a series of working labs, students learn various software applications and associated techniques to execute precise two-dimensional representations of three-dimensional concepts. Students also learn the Weitzman systems, network basics and computer lab procedures. Course enrollment is by permit only. Please contact landarch@design.upenn.edu.

Summer Term

0 Course Units

LARP 7960 Independent Studio

An independent studio may be undertaken in the final semester but is not required. The independent studio is intended to provide highly motivated students who have demonstrated their ability to work independently with the opportunity to pursue topics that extend the boundaries of the profession. For permission, students must prepare a written proposal in the preceding semester and apply for approval from the faculty. Details available in Landscape Architecture department office.

Fall, Spring, and Summer Terms

1-2 Course Units

LARP 7970 LA+ Journal

LA+ (Landscape Architecture Plus) is a professional, academic journal produced out of the Weitzman School that explores landscape architecture’s interdisciplinary potential. Each semester, three to four students are selected as LA+ production team members and are responsible for researching, proposing, and producing the journal’s graphic content.* Designing an issue of LA+ can be very rewarding and production team members gain valuable skills and experience in graphic design, image creation, and image copyright that can help prepare them for careers in a number of professional creative environments. Students selected to participate in an LA+ production team will complete 1 CU of work, spread over two semesters. Even numbered issues begin in the Fall and conclude in the Spring. Odd numbered issues begin in the Spring and conclude in the Fall. Students work closely with the editor and LA+ production staff to produce the issue. Student work on the journal during the semester is planned so as not to unduly interfere with studio travel, reviews, or end-of-semester deadlines. LA+ pinups are scheduled on weekends. * Production team members do not have any editorial responsibilities – the journal’s written content is finalized prior to the design and production phase. This course is only open to students who already have been accepted to work on the LA+ Journal. No other permit requests will be approved.

1 Course Unit

LARP 9999 Independent Study

An independent study may be taken for elective credit at any point during the degree program for a letter grade. For permission, students must prepare a written proposal in the preceding semester and obtain a Landscape Architecture faculty advisor to oversee their work. Details are available in the Landscape Architecture department office.

0.5-2 Course Units

Landscape Architecture & Regional Planning (LARP)

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