Landscape Architecture Education Research Articles

Implementation of sustainability principles in landscape architecture education: an examination of faculty attitudes and course syllabi

Purpose This study aims to investigate the integration of education for sustainable development (ESD) into landscape architecture (LA) programs in North American universities to understand its benefits and challenges and provide insights into the implementation of sustainability principles, pedagogies and teaching methods. Design/methodology/approach This study analyzed survey data from 128 LA faculty members from 85 Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture member schools. The survey assessed the implementation of sustainability principles, pedagogies, teaching benefits and challenges to integrating sustainability into their courses. To complement the survey data, 62 LA course syllabi were analyzed using a grounded theory approach to identify the topics covered, learning objectives and learning activities. Findings The study revealed that LA programs incorporate sustainability topics in various courses using project-based and interdisciplinary learning approaches. Integrating ESD into LA curricula promotes sustainability literacy, improved understanding of sustainability concepts and the development of sustainability skills. The study also found positive correlations between teaching methods, the enhancement of sustainability literacy and the development of design and planning skills. Originality/value This research examined the effects of teaching methods on student learning outcomes and the challenges instructors faced, providing practical insights into the integration of ESD in LA education. It offers recommendations to enhance the ESD knowledge of future LA practitioners, considering the inclusion of ESD as a core value of the standard by the Landscape Architectural Accreditation Board.

Applying a pedagogy of interdisciplinary and cross-cultural collaboration as socio-ecological practice in landscape architecture education

Applying a pedagogy of interdisciplinary and cross-cultural collaboration as socio-ecological practice in landscape architecture education

EVALUATION OF PROGRAM OUTCOMES IN THE ACCREDITATION PROCESS: A RESEARCH ON THE CASE OF ATATURK UNIVERSITY LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

Yükseköğretimde program akreditasyonu, bir akreditasyon kuruluşu tarafından belirli bir alanda akademik ve mesleğe ilişkin standartların bir yükseköğretim programınca hangi ölçüde karşılandığını belirleyen; ölçme, değerlendirme ve dış kalite güvence sürecidir. Yükseköğretim programlarının akreditasyon süreçlerinde değerlendirmede kullanılan bazı ölçütler bulunmaktadır. Bu ölçütlerden biri, program çıktılarıdır. Program çıktıları yükseköğretim programlarının öğrencilerine öğrenim süresi boyunca kazandırdıkları bilgi, beceri ve davranışlardır. Bu çalışmanın amacı Atatürk Üniversitesi Mimarlık ve Tasarım Fakültesi Peyzaj Mimarlığı Bölümü’nün akreditasyon çalışmalarının bir parçası olarak gerçekleştirdiği program çıktıları belirleme, güncelleme ve ölçme-değerlendirme süreçlerini incelemektir. Çalışma kapsamında bölüme ait akreditasyon öz değerlendirme raporu, bölüm kalite komisyonu raporları ve paydaş toplantısı raporları incelenerek, program çıktılarına ulaşma anketi gerçekleştirilmiştir. Çalışma ile akreditasyon süreçlerinin peyzaj mimarlığı eğitimine yönelik belirli standartların oluşturulması ve eğitim kalitesinin ölçme ve değerlendirme metotlarıyla sürekli izlenerek tedbir geliştirilmesi konusunda öncü bir rol oynayabileceği değerlendirilmiştir. Ayrıca program çıktılarına hangi düzeyde ulaşıldığını değerlendirmede sadece öğretim üyesi ve mezuniyet aşamasındaki öğrencilerin görüşlerine dayanarak yapılan bir değerlendirmenin yetersiz olacağı, programdan mezun olarak en az 1-2 yıl sektörde çalışma deneyimine ulaşmış mezunların da görüşlerine başvurulmasının daha doğru bir değerlendirme verisi sağlayacağı sonucuna ulaşılmıştır.

Landscape architecture education and democracy

The pioneers of landscape architecture invented this profession in a period of democratic, science and industrial revolutions that encouraged civil rights movements. However, before WWII the courses in landscape architecture were developed in only a small number of countries. Until the mid- seventies several new landscape architecture programs started in Western Europe. From the mid-seventies to the end of the eighties existing programs increased their number of staff members and students. The fall of the Iron Curtain, in 1989, resulted in the establishment of several new university degree programs in Eastern Europe. The hypothesis that there would be a correlation between the development of landscape architecture education and the political regimes is discussed in this paper. Different landscape architecture university programs worldwide are analyzed to see their history and the background of the institutions that provide them. Two reputable resources are used to support this analysis: the Democracy Index, and the Freedom House Report. According to this analysis about 88% of landscape architecture programs are offered in democratic countries, 82% are offered in free countries. A good association between the number of landscape architecture programs and democracy index is verified for former communist countries. The analysis showed that the progress of democracy institutions and civil rights create the necessary environment for the development of the landscape architecture profession.

Landscape architecture Education in Africa

Cet article présente un état des lieux des formations en architecture de paysage en Afrique. Il tente de faire le lien entre des cursus de formation en la matière et l’état de reconnaissance de la profession elle-même. De prime abord, nous constatons que la profession est soumise à réglementation uniquement en Afrique du Sud, et que la formation n’est dispensée actuellement que dans quelques pays du continent. Celle-ci est fortement influencée par les modèles français dans les pays de l’Afrique du Nord et par les modèles anglo-saxons – essentiellement du Royaume-Uni et des États-Unis – dans les pays anglophones. Il y a également peu d’adaptations des cursus quant à la prise en compte des contextes spécifiques africains hormis quelques ajustements opérés récemment en Afrique du Sud. À la lumière du diagnostic (élaboré sur la base des informations à notre disposition) des cursus de formation dispensés dans les quatre principales régions d’Afrique (Sud, Nord, Est et Ouest) et de leurs modes opératoires, force est de remarquer que peu de recherches ont été menées en vue de créer un corpus de littérature théorique spécifiquement africain. À cet égard, il serait opportun de mettre au point une méthodologie qui intègre l’histoire spécifique et adapte les démarches vernaculaires quand elles sont appropriées, tout en gardant la démarche analytique et conceptuelle qui reste valable dans toutes les situations. Afin de garantir les chances de réussite d’une telle démarche, il faudrait travailler dans un esprit collaboratif avec une attitude d’écoute, de respect et d’humilité vis-à-vis des cultures locales. Parallèlement, il est plus que souhaitable d’œuvrer à la cocréation d’un corpus théorique plus approprié à une Afrique postcoloniale dans un contexte de changement climatique.

Landscape architecture at Wageningen (Netherlands)

In this article, I will give a brief overview of the development of teaching and research in landscape architecture in Wageningen by studying the relationships between practice, education and research over the past 50 years. The purpose of this article is to provide a first explorative overview. So far, few – if any – publications exist on this issue in an international context. The research method is based on the principles of case study research, logical argumentation and comparative analysis. The research material is largely Dutch; publications, projects. The outline is made up of three main sections, based on development over the last 50 years of landscape architecture education in Wageningen. New design knowledge and work domains for a growing number of landscape architects have emerged over the last 50 years. The academic environment of Wageningen University has strengthened the position of landscape architecture in meeting the new challenges of climate change; the combination of knowledge of the landscape as a natural system and conceptual ways of thinking seems to be a unique and solid basis for the future.

The garden as Raumkunstwerk: the role of early 20th-century architecture schools for the modernisation of landscape architecture ed

The process leading to the first full academic curriculum for the discipline of landscape architecture in Germany being introduced in 1930 is relatively well-researched. Until then, garden design had been taught at special horticultural institutes. However, in the course of reform processes during the early 20th century, the subject of the garden was also introduced in different form and at different types of institutions of higher education as connected to architecture. This correlated with two subfields: architectural design and urban planning theory. The present paper’s first aim is to give a first overview over the variety of partly little-known curricula and courses that addressed open space design, respectively the personalities involved. By referring to a wide scope of sources, connections are disclosed between academia and some of the theoretical works addressing the garden. Within the profession of landscape architecture all the new educational options were known, which leads to the assumption that these options represented a source of inspiration for reforming landscape architecture education in the early 20th century.

Innovative Practice of Sustainable Landscape Architecture Education—Parametric-Aided Design and Application

The traditional teaching model of landscape architecture education is teacher-centered classroom lectures, which cannot effectively satisfy students’ curiosity and stimulate their creative thinking and computational thinking skills, resulting in students’ low willingness to learn, inattentiveness, and lack of participation in discussions and interactions. This study attempts to combine the BOPPPS teaching structure and Design-Based Learning model to innovate the teaching design, construct the knowledge chain of landscape architecture design modeling and inspire the logic of thinking, with visual programming language, virtual reality parametric modeling and 3D printing hands-on activities while integrating sustainable development goals and related thematic issues to develop practical skills and problem-solving abilities. Through collecting students’ learning performance, examining the quality and effectiveness of teaching and learning, reflecting on the revised teaching content and methods and establishing a practical teaching plan for sustainable landscape architecture education. The results of the study show that the combination of innovative teaching and learning models with SDG-related thematic issues and collaborative group discussions with teaching activities helps to enhance students’ learning effectiveness and bring the learning performances of different learners closer together. In addition, the analysis of learning satisfaction shows that it enhances students’ interest and motivation in learning.

Recoding Landscape Education: Research-Based Studio Approach

The landscapes and the memory of the landscapes are evolving with natural and human-centered activities. In some places, landscapes continue to reveal their memory ecologically, socially, and culturally. On the other hand, in some places, landscapes lose their ecologic and socio-cultural archive as a result of globalization. This issue causes to emerge fragile landscapes according to lack of water resources, global warming, a decrease in biodiversity. Preserving the memory of landscapes and using it in the practice of landscape is a deeply crucial issue. The paper tries to answer two questions: How can landscape memory be used in design education? How can a research-based design studio pedagogy be conducted on this approach? This paper focuses on the research-based design approach in landscape architecture education to decode and recode the memory of the landscapes in the design process. ITU Landscape Architecture Department 2019-2020 Fall Semester Landscape Design Studio I-II, which is the case study of the research, worked in Savur, Mardin. The study area provides unexpected landscape carpet including browns and greens together in the valleys of the region that have a rich social and ecological structure. The methodological process of the studio was based on the three approaches which are integrated into each other: The Landscape Memory Model, Action-based Design Studio, and Research-based Design Studio. The model provides a guide for reading the memory of the landscape with various memory codes hidden under the visible and invisible values of it. This core process is used by the students for understanding the cultural and ecological values of the study area and implementing them into the design process. The action-based studio approach allows the tutors to find the problematic points in the design process of each student and resolve them in a positive way. Covering these two approaches, the research-based design studio expresses the discovery of the knowledge through a strong research process. The results are as followed: Implementing a research-based process ensured a place-based and innovative perspective to shape a design concept. Using the pre-specified landscape memory model empowered the research phase and helped students to analyze and discern the place with their own perceptions. Action-based flow allowed the instructors to leave the conventional studio performing and helped to use in-situ (special to the studio) instructing techniques within the semester. This paper may be influential for especially landscape design studios and relocate conventional studio approaches with more flexible and progressive techniques to understand the place and beyond.

A Qualitative Study of Practitioner Perspectives on Landscape Architecture and Equity

This paper describes an interpretive, exploratory qualitative study that sought to understand practitioner perspectives on challenges to and opportunities for advancing equity through landscape architecture. We defined equity broadly as “fair and just access to opportunities and resources.” A purposeful nonrandom sample of public practice designers aswell as designers in private and nonprofit practice who worked on public projects was followed by a snowball sample.We conducted 25interviews in total. As we planned for our member check in May 2020, George Floyd, an unarmed black man, was murdered by Minneapolis PoliceOfficerDerek Chauvin, prompting racial justice and police reform protests in the Twin Cities and around theworld.We used themember check survey as an opportunity to reviewthemesidentifiedin the interviews and to ask how participants thought their interview responses might have shifted as a result of experiencing these events. Participants identified the lack of diversity in landscape architectural education and practice as a barrier. They observed that one’s professional power (e.g., status as a firmleader vs. junior staffmember)was significant to one’s ability to advocate for equity through practice. Public engagement and community planning processes were seen as opportunities for landscape architects to address the unequal distribution of positive and negative impacts of environmental design. Respondents suggested that there was a need to educate design decision-makers about what equity is and how equity-driven design projects might be implemented. Respondents noted the role that community organizations played in educating designers about equity issues. Our next steps are to create a survey based on our findings, to use that survey to hear froma broader range of practitioners in the State of Minnesota, and to share this research with ASLA-MN members who are organizing equity-advocacy networks.

Glyphs, planes and pictorial tales: Restoring hand graphics to centrality in landscape architecture education

Landscape architecture has been transformed in recent decades by technological applications which have displaced a long-established tradition of manual graphic expression. Although advantageous for private enterprise, this development has not been entirely salutary in academia, as the discarding of manual graphics also eliminated an invaluable medium of teaching design thinking, creative exploration and ideological values. This article summarizes the results of an experimental course on advanced hand graphics taught within a technology-dominated landscape curriculum. Intended to cultivate cognitive and analytical abilities vital for successful design practice, it was simultaneously foreseen as a template for future applications to reinforce design education’s connection to manual graphics. An overview of philosophical objectives, structure and implementation is supplemented with student feedback and work specimens, parameters which were collectively evaluated to assess course performance, success and future viability.

Risk as productive in landscape architecture pedagogy

This paper explores the notion of “productive risk” as a way of understanding how diverse students can become re-makers of landscape architectural design practices and education. We trace the design trajectories of two first-year students at a South African tertiary institution and examine how the students negotiate the risk of drawing on their own experiences and resources in order to access conventionalised disciplinary practices. It is important to recognise students’ brought-along resources, but we also need to recognise the risk involved for the students and teachers in drawing on these resources. This risk needs to be seen in the light of a history of colonised education where diverse resources and experiences were often disregarded or devalued. We show how these students contextualise landscape architecture in terms of their own experiences and draw on their resources as prompts to space-making for the imagined users of their designs. We surface the risk in terms of students’ experiential resources as well as the use of unusual model-building materials and techniques. The high levels of engagement that these two students demonstrate in their design trajectories reveal the importance of making a connection between diverse contexts and the landscape architectural classroom. We argue that a pedagogy that embraces risk as productive can recognise and validate the rich knowledge, resources and experiences that students bring with them.

A Spherical Video-Based Immersive Virtual Reality Learning System to Support Landscape Architecture Students’ Learning Performance during the COVID-19 Era

During the COVID-19 pandemic, campuses are closed, and many schools are forced to transition to online instruction. There are many problems in landscape architecture education during the pandemic such as students’ decreased attention, poor self-regulation, low proactivity, and difficulty in grading. In addition, situational effects are required for landscape architecture education, but online education lacks the necessary case scenarios for courses during the pandemic. In order to solve these problems, the present study adopted a more accessible, and interactive spherical video-based immersive virtual reality (SV-IVR) approach, developed a landscape architecture SV-IVR learning system, and conducted a quasi-experimental study to examine its effectiveness. The results indicated that the experimental group students showed more positive results in their learning achievements, learning attitudes, and self-regulation than the control group. Besides, it was found that students required more time to develop their self-efficacy and that this system would not have an effect on students’ cognitive load.

Decolonising a landscape architecture studio: Spatial modelling of student narratives

This paper problematises the dominance of global north perspectives in landscape architectural education, in South Africa where there are urgent calls to decolonise education and make visible indigenous and vernacular meaning-making practices. In grappling with these concerns, this research finds resonance with a multimodal social semiotic approach that acknowledges the interest, agency and resourcefulness of students as meaning-makers in both accessing and challenging dominant educational discourses. This research involves a case study of a design project in a first-year landscape architectural studio. The project requires students to choose a narrative and to represent it as a spatial model: a scaled, 3D maquette of a spatial experience that could be installed in a public park. This practitioner reflection closely analyses the spatial model of one student, Malibongwe, focusing on his interest in meaning-making; the innovative meaning-making practices and diverse resources he draws on; and his expression of spatial signifiers of the Black experiences portrayed in his narrative. This reflection shows how Malibongwe’s narrative is not only reproduced in the spatial model, it is remade: the transformation of resources into three-dimensional spatial form results in new understandings and the production of new meanings.

Teaching Fieldwork in Landscape Architecture in European Context; Some Backgrounds and Organisation

Fieldwork is an intrinsic part of landscape architecture education because it confronts the students with the landscape in real life, shows realised projects, enables different experiences, and provides a direct confrontation with the historical context of the discipline. Here the main goal is to give a first overview of teaching of fieldwork, compare that with other publications, and analyse pedagogical and didactic backgrounds in landscape architectural education in Europe. This study is based mainly on existing publications and complemented with our own experiences with fieldwork in teaching. The research method is based on accumulating existing knowledge on the subject and the principles of case study research. After a short overview of pedagogy and didactics in the context of teaching in design disciplines and how this relates to teaching landscape architecture, we work out the organisation of teaching in the outdoors. The conclusions focus on what can be learned in the outdoors that you cannot be learned indoors. Learning to see, to experience the landscape in real is part of “learning by doing” in which drawing, sketching, measuring plays a key role. In the long run pedagogy and didactics of fieldwork should be developed as domain-specific field of knowledge as part of design education in general.

Learning to Design with Stakeholders: Participatory, Collaborative, and Transdisciplinary Design in Postgraduate Landscape Architecture Education in Europe

Over the last few decades, interaction and collaboration with stakeholders and communities in the design and development of our environment have become integral parts of landscape architecture practice. This article explores the position of this kind of designing in postgraduate landscape architecture education in Europe. An analysis of the international master’s curricula in landscape architecture of 29 universities across Europe shows there is some attention paid to participatory, collaborative, and transdisciplinary design in several, but not all programs. However, participatory, collaborative, and transdisciplinary design is an important topic in the current discourse amongst landscape architecture scholars. This may indicate an increase in attention to the topic in European landscape architecture education curricula in the (near) future.

대학 내 조경전공 교육과정에 있어 새로운 컴퓨터 미디어 수업의 필요와 개선방향

대학 내 조경전공 교육과정에 있어 새로운 컴퓨터 미디어 수업의 필요와 개선방향

Teaching landscape architecture: a discipline comes of age

ABSTRACT Two new books on landscape (architecture) teaching, provided the rationale for this paper. It aims to place these into the context of the development of the landscape architecture discipline in Europe. A description of the beginnings of European university education follows an outline of the genesis of the profession. Moves towards European integration in the 1980s supported the establishment of an institutional framework, allowing the creation of a critical mass of academics, giving new impetus to teaching and research. An EU-funded Thematic Network supported the preparation of a common education guidance document, responding indirectly to the European Landscape Convention’s call for university courses for landscape specialists. The Convention also stimulated a renewed focus on landscape in other fields of study. This has also broadened the horizons of landscape architecture teaching to encompass approaches from related disciplines. Finally, the paper discusses how landscape architecture education should respond to emerging societal challenges.

On Landscape Architecture Education and Professional Practice and Their Future Challenges

Increased environmental and social risk, ubiquitous information technology, and growing demands for and growing threats to democracy and public participation will alter the education and practice of all the design professions and the geographically oriented sciences, and the ways in which their activities towards influencing environmental and social change are organized and carried out. We all know about these trends, but we do not take them seriously enough. We are not adapting fast enough towards education or professional practice that is collaborative and globally oriented.

Spatial Orientation Skill for Landscape Architecture Education and Professional Practice

Professional landscape architecture organizations have requested training from educational institutions based on new skills and methodologies in the curriculum development of students. Landscape architects need to visualize and evaluate the spatial relationships between the different components of the landscape using two-dimensional (2D) or three-dimensional (3D) maps and geospatial information, for which spatial orientation skills are necessary. The data from six workshops conducted throughout the 2010–2020 period, in which 560 second-year engineering students participated using different strategies and technical tools for spatial orientation skills’ development, were collected in a unique study. Factors such as the technology used, the gaming environment, the type of task, the 2D/3D environment, and the virtual environment were considered. The Perspective-Taking Spatial Orientation Test was the measurement tool used. The results show that mapping tasks are more efficient than route-based tasks. Strategies using 2D and a 2D/3D combination are more effective than those with only 3D. First-person perspective gaming environments are also a valid alternative. The technologies applied in this study are easy to use and free, and a measurement tool is provided. This facilitates an interdisciplinary approach between landscape architecture education and professional practice since these workshops could also be easily carried out by professional bodies for landscape planning and management.