Knowledges/ Competences:

Competences in the field of knowledge and understanding, design, analysis and methods, social competences. On completion of this course the student will be able to demonstrate an advanced level of design, based on clear analytical and conceptual thinking at different scales.

The studio presents the students with a theoretical understanding and a framework for assessing and understanding the landscape issues in an urban and suburban context. Learnings of key concepts for designing and evaluating interventions in public spaces and large–scale urban landscapes.

Over the course of the semester we engage in theoretical discussion, focusing on the application of different theoretical perspectives to specific cases.

At a large scale students will learn to:

Understand large scale landscape dynamics.  Learn to observe, investigate  and transcribe landscape data over to mappings. Learn to use geologic and geographic maps and layer notions. Use landscape notions such as Edge Landscape (K.Helms 2019) and Landscape as a Prerequisite for the urban (M.Desvigne 2015).

At a small scale the studio will support the students in developing their landscape architecture general competences in: Understanding the grounding, and soil fertility in towns; Providing the practical and theoretical tools to design and specify the plantation and the initial maintenance of a public space. Simulate over a period the development of a community of plants and understanding the notion of landscape structure.  

Skills

The coursework relies on basic tools, hand drawing and software within landscape design to represent spatial and material conditions. Examples of these are AutoCAD, Adobe package, 3D modelling programs (Rhino), and others. There will be student support to learn these tools if not already acquired.

We will apply various tools for mapping, analysing, and assessing sites, and capture insights about needs, challenges, and opportunities for design. Through the creative group process of integrating insights from mapping into feasible designs, you learn key principles and tools for designing and running creative processes: Both individually and in groups. 

General competence

The course aims to develop the students’ ability to combine and integrate insight about the landscape in a creative process, leading to a specific design, that can convincingly contribute to achieve specific development aims for the area. We do aim to help the students to find their own vision, to be creative.

Graduating from the course, students will have developed awareness of how various aspects and factors affects a specific site, and will be able to describe these factors from a theoretically informed perspective. Using mapping tools, they can derive insights about the specificity of the site, and review those insights in both a theoretical and an applied perspective. Finally, using a conscious creative process, they can integrate theoretical and applied perspectives to device designs that take site specific aspects into account, and make meaningful interventions.