Ecologies, Techniques, Technologies IV

GSD 6242 is the fourth and final course in the Ecologies, Techniques and Technologies landscape core sequence. It is a required course for all MLA 1 and MLA 1 AP students. So far, this sequence of classes has introduced the practices of planting and design; grading, drainage and design; and ecology and design. The Poetics of Landscape Making addresses the relationship between materials, making, ideas, and design.

The material medium of landscape is constantly weathering and morphologically changing yet still needs to be shaped by a practical and rigorous constructional logic. Class members will learn traditional, current, and emerging practices of landscape making and their application to contemporary site conditions.

The ambition of the course is:
• To inculcate in each class member an understanding of practices of design development, detail design and documentation in landscape architecture.
• Address the making of landscape architecture and how this can shape use, formal expression and cultural identity in landscape architecture at a range of scales from that of a site to the individual detail.
• As with the other classes in the ETT sequence this course is directly related to the thinking and practice of the MLA 1 and MLA 1AP core studio sequence. In this class this relationship is summarized in the phrase: the meaning of a landscape is latent in the manner of it’s making.

This course addresses the interrelationships of a triad of concepts that shape a made landscape that embodies ideas. These concepts are defined and their role in the design development and detailing of a landscape are explained. The class will also teach the detail design practices that are used to shape and document a made landscape. The principle issue that the course address is that landscape design is not a linear trajectory from design abstraction to making but is rather an iterative dialogue between the triad of concepts.