Theories and Practices of Landscape Architecture

What do you need to know in order to understand this landscape? How do design culture and design thinking transform over time? How are cultural values embedded in the design of landscapes? This course is framed in terms of the relationship of landscape architecture to the evolving theorizations of nature and culture. In each class, we will map various critical assumptions, ideologies, and aspirations that inform how landscape is designed and interpreted. By learning to read landscapes and related projects of landscape architecture, we will study the constructedness of landscape. Conversely, we will also examine the capacities of landscape architecture to shape identity and ecology, reproduce or contest power relations and inequality, and commemorate diverse cultural meaning.

The course elaborates a working definition of theory as it relates to landscape practice. It contextualizes the discipline’s transition from a modernist paradigm in the West, to the gradual eradication of conceptual binaries and the pluralization of narratives in the late twentieth century. It considers landscape’s ‘social’ engagements to include non-human actors, and concludes with recent materialist approaches to landscape that emphasize its performance and flows in the era of global warming.

The course weaves together three kinds of investigations: one that focuses on built forms, another on the ideas and conceptual frameworks that guide the production of those forms, and a third that examines the retrospective interpretation of those forms. We will attend to diverse projects and topics, that may include border regions, urban landscapes, agricultural landscapes, colonial plantations, scientific gardens, territories of extraction, zones of environmental risk, successional forests, migrating ecosystems, national parks, native lands, domestic spheres, and postcolonial gardens. Through these sites, we will critically explore the spatial forms of exclusion, inclusion, conflict, and cooperation between and among people and their surroundings.

At the end of this class, students will understand the value and make use of theory in design, will be able to articulate the diverse intellectual, social, and political dimensions of landscapes, and to refer to a history of landscape architecture projects oriented to related issues. Students will also be able to articulate their priorities within the discipline. Assignments will include a combination of case study presentations, written responses to assigned readings and hands-on exercises designed to train students in the analysis of landscapes.

This course is open to all Harvard GSD students and also accepts cross-registered students.

Discourse and Research Methods

This pro-seminar is a core requirement for successful completion of the Doctor of Design program. Primarily, it will focus on various thematic areas that range across various topics and the methods and skills that might be involved in each area. Generally, these will include: historical thinking, critical thinking, thinking about technologies, analysis of social settings, theorizing landscapes, and theorizing aspects of urban form, as well as analyzing its environmental performance. Each seminar will be of two or more hours in duration and comprised of presentation by an invited faculty member on a theme of their research and scholarly interest, followed by discussion among the class. The seminar will meet on Thursdays between 3:00pm and 5:45pm at 20 Sumner Road, House Zero’s lower floor conference room.

Discourse and Methods I

This course is open only to Ph.D. students in Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning and Design (Ph.D. students from other departments may participate with instructor’s permission). This year’s course focuses on major theoretical and historiographical issues and themes that still structure scholarly discourse today. Students will confront these issues and themes by relating them to key methodological concerns and horizons in their own emerging research agendas.
 

Thesis Extension in Satisfaction of Degree Doctor of Design

Thesis extension in satisfaction of the degree Doctor of Design.

Thesis in Satisfaction of Degree Doctor of Design

Thesis in Satisfaction of the degree Doctor of Design.

Independent Design Engineering Project II

The Independent Design Engineering Project (IDEP) is a two-semester project during which students in the Master in Design Engineering (MDE) program work on understanding a concise, real-world problem, and develop a prototypical solution. Methodologically a continuation of the MDE first-year studio, each student frames a complex problem and engages with stakeholders in order to understand its multi-scalar, multi-disciplinary aspects. Work on a solution involves a combination of analytical and visualization skills, technical skills, and design methods, culminating in the development, prototyping and evaluation of a solution.

The two-semester long IDEP is the required second-year component of the MDE program. In the fall, students primarily focus on framing and understanding the problem by conducting  research,  engaging stakeholders and prototyping early solutions. During the spring, students work independently, meeting with their two advisors at mutually agreeable intervals, with the goal of developing a final prototype and evaluating its impact. Student presentations at the midterm and the final reviews are required. The IDEP directors will hold optional weekly office hours for which any second year MDE student or IDEP team can sign up. 

Independent Thesis in Satisfaction of the Degree Master in Landscape Architecture

Following preparation in GSD 9341, each student pursues a topic of relevance to landscape architecture, which must include academic inquiry and design exploration.

Independent Thesis for the Degree Master in Design Studies

(Previously "Open Projects”) Prerequisites: Filing of signed "Declaration of Advisor" form with MDes office, and approval signature of the program director. A student who selects this independent thesis for the degree MDes pursues independent research of relevance to the selected course of study within the MDes program, under the direction of a Design School faculty member. Only stuents in the MDES Areas, not Domains, can enroll in this course, and with the noted approvals.

Independent Thesis in Satisfaction of the Degree MAUD, MLAUD, or MUP

Following participation in the department’s fall thesis preparation seminar (GSD 9204), the spring term of the second year sees students complete, defend, and submit their thesis. Thesis students must register in GSD 9302: Independent Thesis, which counts for eight units. This is a critical period in the thesis process and one where a strong student-advisor relationship is essential. During the term, students work closely with their advisors to develop a final thesis that can pass the scrutiny of faculty and outside critics. Students present their thesis-in-progress in mid-term and pre-final reviews and defend the final project in a final review.

 

Independent Thesis in Satisfaction of Degree MArch

The Thesis Program encourages students to take advantage of the wide range of resources and research initiatives of the Graduate School of Design and its faculty to make a thoughtful contribution to the discipline. Thesis is a required component of the March I program, and an optional track for the March II program.

Each student works on a final thesis project based upon the interests and research done in the semesters leading up to the final term and under the guidance of a designated faculty advisor, with whom s/he will meet regularly throughout the course of the term.

The final thesis project, having attained a sufficient standard of completion, will be presented and defended at a final, open review consisting of a panel chaired by the thesis advisor and composed of members of the faculty and invited critics.