All entering Landscape Architecture students are required to participate in the department's four-week preparatory summer program in design fundamentals and field ecology. This course parallels similar ones being held for new students in other departments within the Architecture and Design Division. The design fundamentals component of the program is intended to provide the methodological and theoretical framework for RISD's Landscape programs and initiates discussion of design making and critique necessary for the more specialized studio work that follows. The summer course, in preparation for this, builds a basic design language, familiarity with tools and materials, and 2 and 3-dimensional skills that will be needed immediately upon entering the studio sequence. The field ecology component of the summer program places basic design discussions within the context of landscape-based practice. It is intended to build awareness of ecological issues (using southern New England as a case study), facilitate the ability to interpret the landscape and the nonhuman and cultural forces which have shaped it over time, and foster an environmental ethic. This segment of the program is critical for building a knowledge base and a philosophical framework within which future design efforts may be evaluated. The summer program offers a unique opportunity to engage classmates and faculty in a focused discussion of design-related issues which can be sustained over the course of one's studies. The course meets five days a week (including some weekends).

Students are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Landscape Architecture Students.

Major Requirement | MLA-I Landscape Architecture

This 6-credit advanced elective studio centers around the Sustainability Lab, an initiative between LDAR and INTAR departments to explore creative material approaches to sustainability. Looking specifically at materials common to the New England region, this hands-on research studio asks students to question current attitudes towards exploitative land uses and material cultures and push the boundaries of material use and techniques in professional architecture and landscape architecture design practices.

This studio focuses on New England's material cultures' environmental, geological, and socio-cultural influences and the impact of current land use and manufacturing practices on the professional design industry. This studio will explore one selected material each year through three main components. First, students will study the histories and stories of the selected material and land use and how they have shaped different regions of New England and become entangled in power relations, value systems, and wider networks of material exchange. Second, they will explore the selected material’s behavior, its unique property dynamics, and how they have influenced its different uses. Finally, using both digital and analog fabrication, students will develop iterative creative processes that explore sustainable ways of drawing and making with the selected materials as modular and in-situ techniques.  

This is a co-requisite course. Students must register for LDAR/INTAR-500G and LDAR/INTAR-501G.

Students are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Landscape Architecture and Interior Architecture Graduate Students.

Elective

This 6-credit advanced elective studio centers around the Sustainability Lab, an initiative between LDAR and INTAR departments to explore creative material approaches to sustainability. Looking specifically at materials common to the New England region, this hands-on research studio asks students to question current attitudes towards exploitative land uses and material cultures and push the boundaries of material use and techniques in professional architecture and landscape architecture design practices.

This studio focuses on New England's material cultures' environmental, geological, and socio-cultural influences and the impact of current land use and manufacturing practices on the professional design industry. This studio will explore one selected material each year through three main components. First, students will study the histories and stories of the selected material and land use and how they have shaped different regions of New England and become entangled in power relations, value systems, and wider networks of material exchange. Second, they will explore the selected material’s behavior, its unique property dynamics, and how they have influenced its different uses. Finally, using both digital and analog fabrication, students will develop iterative creative processes that explore sustainable ways of drawing and making with the selected materials as modular and in-situ techniques.  

This is a co-requisite course. Students must register for LDAR/INTAR-500G and LDAR/INTAR-501G.

Students are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Landscape Architecture and Interior Architecture Graduate Students.

Elective