This proseminar explores critical disciplinary frameworks for landscape architecture in two broad categories: first, intersecting areas of practice and pedagogy, and second, topics and techniques of academic design research. In the first, concerning practice and teaching, we will interrogate diverse modes of landscape architecture practice including normative and alternative practices along with what we might call “academic practice” by various GSD faculty who actively design projects. What are the specific ways in which practice directly informs teaching? How does the pursuit of an academic life help shape practice, and what are the values that motivate these overlaps? On the research side, we’ll investigate how design researchers form compelling research questions, devise defensible investigatory methods, and eventually contribute impactful forms of knowledge that keep landscape architecture responsive to the pressing questions of our time and drive innovation and change in the field. And how does design research support academic advancement in the university? What is the trajectory of a teaching career in design at an R1 research university? The robust learning outcome intended with this work is that students will build for themselves a grounded intellectual platform from which to make enlightened choices in the ensuing three semesters at GSD and then shape a promising trajectory for the years beyond graduate school.

Enrollment is limited to entering MLA II students at GSD.