Course Description
Concepts of sustainable site design and their implications for landscape architecture, with particular emphasis on the issue of environmental suitability, provision of ecosystems services and geodesign. Projects selected to investigate alternative design scenarios in a variety of environments, contexts, and geographic scales.
Athena Title
Nature and Sustainability
Non-Traditional Format
Course includes a service-learning project during the semester that either employs skills or knowledge learned in the course or teaches new skills or knowledge related to course objectives. Student engagement in the service-learning component will be up to 25% of overall instruction time.
Semester Course Offered
Offered fall
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
Students are expected to obtain from this class: Knowledge: Upon completion of the course, students with a passing evaluation will have demonstrated the following: •Understanding the principles and best practices of landscape ecological assessment and design process. •Understanding of how to access information and resources relevant to land use and design. •How to use and access the variety of equipment, techniques, and published sources for obtaining site information. •Understanding the relevance of site information to determine land use, design, and sustainability. •Knowledge of the current and historic literature of landscape ecological processes and principles for the purposes of landscape architectural design. Skills: Upon completion of the course, students with a passing evaluation will have demonstrated the following: •The ability to interpret specialized site information (maps, surveys, aerial photos). •The ability to organize relevant site data for design. •The use of tools to compare and select alternative design strategies using site information and performance metrics. •The ability to apply principles of sustainability to a specific site-based project and to communicate the implications of design alternatives. Values: Upon completion of the course, students with a passing evaluation will have demonstrated the following: •A clear recognition of competing values of site development, preservation, and restoration. •Respect for intrinsic values of natural systems and cultural systems. •Responsibility for health, safety, and welfare in land use issues. •Awareness of global environmental issues related to land planning and design.
Topical Outline
Lectures and projects will be selected and presented in support of the following topical outline: Sustainable site design is a continually evolving goal of professional landscape architecture practices. It involves analysis of the landscape structure, function, and change from pre-settlement conditions through the implementation of proposed design interventions. This course is studio-based, with a corresponding lecture component organized around current research, tools, and strategies for sustainable site design. In the course two to three projects are selected based on complexity and relevance to the course topic, which meet the learning objectives of the studio. Service-learning and community engagement opportunities are integrated into the studio to allow students the experience of negotiating between design ideals and community/stakeholder needs. Each project in the studio includes the following structure: Site Inventory •Data collection •Data presentation •Data analysis Literature Review •Issues of sustainable practices •Site-specific information •Current technologies and design solutions to similar project types Initial site programming •Collecting stakeholder interviews/feedback •Development of initial site program Site Analysis •Identify criteria for suitability analysis •Create criteria-specific suitability analysis Site Master Planning/Conceptual Design •Composite suitability analysis to reflect goals and objectives of project •Develop alternative design scenarios for evaluation based on general sustainability principles and suitability analysis Design Development and Communication •Development of the preferred design scenario •Evaluation of preferred scenario based on sustainability metrics •Communication of design elements and sustainability strategies to stakeholders Construction Design •Development of detailed site development construction plans •Production of grading, layout, and landscape documents •Communication of design intent through illustrative master plan, site enlargements, section-elevation, perspective drawings, and other methods, such as 3D modeling.
Syllabus
Public CV