These studios, which are required for graduation, are offered by individual instructors to students who have successfully completed the core curriculum. They are assigned by lottery on the first day of classes.
Major requirement; LDAR majors only
Registration by Landscape Architecture Design department; course not available via web registration
Fee: Some advanced studios have a fee for course supplies or field trips. The fee is announced during the registration lottery held in the department

This core studio stresses small and middle scale landscape architectural design. A series of studio problems will explore urban public spaces. Students will endeavor to represent contemporary cultural and ecological ideas in land form. There will be an emphasis on constructive strategies, the use of plants in design and methods of representation.
Major requirement; LDAR majors only
Registration by Landscape Architecture Design department, course not available via web registration
Estimated cost of materials: $350.00

This course explores design principles common to architecture, and landscape architecture. Projects are selected to provide a basis for discerning and investigating both the differences of focus suggested by the two disciplines and their common concerns. Two interrelated aspects of design are pursued: 1) the elements of composition and their formal, spatial, and tectonic manipulation and 2) meanings conveyed by formal choices and transformations.
Major requirement; LDAR majors only
Registration by Landscape Architecture Design department, course not available via web registration

This survey course focuses on the history of landscapes in the pre-industrialized world. Landscapes will be considered as an evolving condition, even when their defining characteristics were conceived and built at a specific point in time. Critical to this course will be the establishment of frameworks for historical inquiry, the refinement of research methodologies, in the development of multiple perspectives through which to question and understand the design environment.
Art History credit for Landscape Architecture majors required; Liberal Arts elective credit for nonmajors on a space available basis.

This survey course focuses on the history of landscapes in the pre-industrialized world. Landscapes will be considered as an evolving condition, even when their defining characteristics were conceived and built at a specific point in time. Critical to this course will be the establishment of frameworks for historical inquiry, the refinement of research methodologies, in the development of multiple perspectives through which to question and understand the design environment.
Major required; LDAR majors only
Registration by Landscape Design department, course not available via web registration
Also offered as LAEL LE44,Liberal Arts elective credit, for non-majors on a space available basis.
NCS concentrators encouraged.

This studio is offered jointly by Landscape Architecture and Industrial Design. The focus is on issues currently facing society and the environment that demand reframed questions about societal needs and their implications, a sharing of disciplinary expertise, and innovative approaches to old and new technologies and materials and their application. Throughout the course, thinking beyond the limits of one's own discipline will be stressed. Studio instructors and guest lecturers will be drawn from RISD, other technology, business and design institutes; and from industry.
Students must be in good academic standing to be considered for this course.
Major graduate requirement; LDAR majors only
Registration by Landscape Architecture Design department, course not available via web registration
Also offered as ID 24ST 02 & ARCH 21ST 08. Register in the course for which credit is desired.

Botanical topics relating to a general understanding of plant growth, classification, and horticultural and arboricultural practices. Course work will include a further understanding of plant communities, plant identifications, and an introduction to planting design.
Major requirement; LDAR majors only
Registration by Landscape Architecture Design department, course not available via web registration; Open to non-majors by permission of Instructor

This course develops the different levels of dexterity and control in the construction of architectural drawing. The pedagogy allows for students to build a basic understanding of orthographic drawing typologies and traditional drawing methods while preparing them for more complex hybridized drawing methods. A parallel segment of the course addresses freehand representation, developing observation and translation tools necessary to design. Through these multiple approaches, drawing is developed as a tool to transform conceptual ideas into tangible form. The class will be taught as a series of lectures that discuss both why and how we draw accompanied by skill building workshops.
Major requirement; LDAR majors only
Registration by Landscape Architecture Design department, course not available via web registration; Open to non-majors by permission of Instructor

This course is a continuation of Technology & Materials I with emphasis on grading, drainage, construction details and layout. Other topics include surveying, road alignment, and storm water management strategies.
Major requirement; LDAR majors only; Open non majors by permission of the instructor.
Registration by Landscape Architecture Design department, course not available via web registration

This course deals with advanced problems in landscape construction, materials, and site engineering, focusing on best management practices: infiltration basins, bio-swales, rain gardens, retention and detention basins, stream day-lighting, etc. There is a semester long site design development. Each student produces a booklet that explain their site analysis, design concept, grading plan, schematic planting, and river edge remediation.
Major requirement; LDAR majors only
Registration by Landscape Architecture Design department, course not available via web registration

Landscape is a term that can refer to a specific locale, design or even a collection of ideas, and political or ideological landscape. The term almost always implies a visual order, involving both cultural forces and natural forces. We are concerned with ideological aspects in terms of representational structure, especially the connection between visual and verbal representations of landscape, including texts, pictures, films, current media and built landscape case studies. Writing assignments will be based upon fundamental, critical texts and words and images from current media.
Graduate major requirement; LDAR majors only
Registration by Landscape Architecture department, course not available via web registration
Open to qualified undergraduates and non-majors by instructor permission

This seminar explores how theory and design can be mutually informing through discussions of built work in relationship to theoretical writings. Students will identify the works and issues to be covered and lead class discussions. This seminar initiates the thesis process by asking students to formulate their own proposals for research through design.
Graduate major requirement; LDAR majors only
Registration by Landscape Architecture Design department, course not available via web registration

Have you ever wanted to turn your art and design project into a science experiment? To use methods of scientific inquiry and experimentation to test and re-craft your objects and interventions? Due to the complexity of our world, an art + science approach is becoming increasingly relevant as a way to create work that is meaningful and has the ability to interact, react and change.
In this workshop, students will work through a platform created by The Public Laboratory (http://publiclaboratory.org), a community which develops and applies open-source tools and accessible DIY techniques to environmental exploration and investigation) to create a series of hypothesizes and physical experiments based on ideas or forms they have previously developed in their own work. They will learn how to craft an experiment/make/revise/repeat. The course will begin with a workshop building and using citizen science tools developed by The Public Laboratory as a way to start thinking about the experimental possibilities of their own work. Students will then develop, test and build a series of experiments to support their inquiries. The class will travel to Boston and New York to meet with members of Public Laboratory and artists, designers and scientists who are making work that results from physical experimentation. Any and all media possibilities are encouraged.

This seminar explores the parallels between designing and constructing the ground. It's focus is on landform - analyzing it as part of a larger natural system; understanding its inherent opportunities and limitations; altering it for human use & occupation; and building it with varying construction methodologies.
The means for this exploration will primarily be through three-dimensional representations with two dimensional contour plans; however, diagrams, sketches, sections, and narratives will be necessary throughout the semester.
Graduate; Restricted to MLA students; LDAR majors only
Nonmajors by permission of instructor

The idea of using living material has taken on a major role in all aspects of design. Lines between where one design discipline ends and another begins have become blurred in today?s design environment. Biophilic design has become a leading study in this phenomenon. This course offers a better understanding of how living systems can take a role in creating new space and structure within the existing built environment . The course includes lectures, discussions, hands on activities, and design assignments to further develop the students understanding of conceptual thinkings and techinical requirements of living systems, biophilic design, spatial planning, and adaptive reuse.
Also offered as INTAR-2119
Estimated Cost of Materials: $25.00-$50.00

This seminar introduces a spectrum of research methodologies meaningful to design disciplines focusing on the intersection of the human, built and natural worlds - approaches stemming for the social sciences, environmental sciences, and design practice. Students will work through a variety of written and visual means to explore differences between, and uses of, quantitative and qualitative data collection, analysis, interpretation, and application. Methods to be explored include Grounded Theory, Phenomenological Inquiry, Participatory approaches, Ethnography, Comparative approaches, Case Study, Postmodern Critical Theory, Systems Theory, survey, narrative, typologies, experimentation, modeling, matrices, mapping, design as research, and social and environmental impact assessment and evaluation. Special attention will be paid to issues of causality, generalization, values and ethics.
The class will be organized around a set of related issues water, ground and poverty, with a focus on the city of Providence. There will be two phases of research with the class participants determining the over-riding research question. Each phase will involve teamwork where teams will utilize different research methodologies to examine the same basic question, and will include written and visual documentation, analysis and interpretation. At the end of each phase, students will explore the differences between the various methodologies and their outcomes and discuss when and how certain approaches and their combination may be more or less effective as part of the practice, critique and scholarship of design.
This graduate seminar meets two days a week, three hours each. It is required for all first-year students in Landscape Architecture, and is open to all others.

Short Story Disaster Worlds is a course focused on the development of a new world based in the events happening in 1 of 5 different science fiction short stories. The capability of a short story to fill us with imagination and wonder in less than 20 pages is the reason they have always been a popular medium for tale telling. These stories stir the imagination to dream of far off worlds, strange beings and impossible situations. The stories also inspire reality. Tales written in the 40's and 50's have been astonishingly accurate in predicting future events. Many of these stories have an alternate future for the world we know, typically seeped in dystopic tones. Dystopian novels provide a vehicle that can project our fears and concerns into realistic situations. It allows us to imagine what could or will happen if humanity ignores problems or creates a disastrous situation. Upon reading these stories we will develop the worlds we read about and ultimately respond to them. Frequently in design work, we attempt to tell a story in a minimal amount of material while still creating interest. The goal of the class is to take the science fiction short stories and elaborate the worlds that they wrote about. We will create a variety of materials to make our fictional dystopia worlds real. Through Government propaganda, survival gadgets, visualizations and recovery plans, we will investigate the richness of detail and fill in the gaps left by the stories.
Estimated Cost of Materials: $100.00

The Rhode Island School of Design has been engaged, since 2007, in collaborative studios with Earth University, the world's foremost school of sustainable agriculture. The Wintersession 2013 studio will be the culmination of a year of research and design study on the development of a prototype classroom - off the grid, hi-tech/low-tech - for rural schools in the dry tropical region of Costa Rica. In the field the students, along with Earth University, will finalize a selected design from this Fall's RISD Innovation Studio. They will build the classroom and its landscape at the La Flor Campus of Earth University. Goal To design and build a classroom prototype that exhibits sustainable building practices in the dry tropics. Design Principles Use affordable materials and labor for construction Develop methods for utilizing local resources and building practices Implement replicable and understandable construction technology Employ energy efficient and environmentally responsible strategies for locating the building on the site and for controlling the interior environment
Ultimately, the classroom, with its inside/outside learning environments, will demonstrate how integrating curriculum, teaching, energy and hi-tech systems, landscape and space will contribute to a transformative learning experience.
Outline Schedule 1/2 week gathering in Providence, travel to Costa Rica 4+ weeks working on the Design/Build Project with weekend excursions investigating sustainability in the dry tropics 1/2 week return to Providence, summary presentation
This course involves travel, usually outside the United States, and there are significant fees for travel and academic expenses. The fees are listed here as soon as they are available. At the time of registration for the travel section, the entire fee must be paid to the Student Accounts Office. The last day to register and pay for Wintersession 2013 is Wednesday, October 31, 2012. If payment in full is not made at time of registration, you will be de-registered from the class.
Estimated travel cost @2,765.00

This course instructs landscape architects and students from other disciplines in collecting, interpreting and mapping landscape site data, both natural and cultural, in order to program and design new uses. Employing diverse projects, from specific sites to municipal and regional contexts, it offers experience in site analysis, mapping, air photo interpretation, planning report preparation, programming for site development, and an introduction to GIS.
Graduate major requirement for three-year MLA program; LDAR majors only; Open to non-majors by permission of Instructor.
Registration by Landscape Architecture Design department, course not available via web registration
Brown University students are encouraged to participate

Development of individually determined projects in response to defined objectives, critical commentary of advisory panels and periodic formal reviews. Three forms of presentation occur: final review, Museum presentation and exhibition, and project book.
Major requirement; LDAR majors only
Registration by Landscape Architecture Design department, course not available via web registration

This course examines current issues raised by the design of built environments and explores the cultures, conditions, events, attitudes and design works of the past that form the ideological, physical and practical background against which today's landscapes are made, interpreted and valued. Critical to this course will be the establishment of frameworks for historical inquiry, the refinement of research methodologies, and the development of multiple perspectives through which to question and understand the designed environment.
Major requirement; LDAR majors only
Registration by Landscape Architecture Design department, course not available via web registration

Through spatial and cultural analysis this course explores the history and meaning of various geographical realities in the Western and non-Western world. A critical examination of urban, suburban and rural land-use patterns; utopian and applied planning practices; models of urban and suburban change; the role of conservation and preservation advocacy and their interface with development, settlement and ecology, allows for an evaluation of new ideas and recent experiments seen against a historical and cultural background.
Graduate major requirement; LDAR majors only
Registration by Landscape Architecture Design department, course not available via web registration
Open to nonmajors & Brown University students by permission of instructor

This course will explore the use of plants as a design medium while balancing the horticultural considerations. There will be analyses of existing gardens, field trips, and the creation of schematic and detailed planting plans for different types of sites. Topics such as seasonality, texture, color and form will be discussed.
Major requirement; LDAR majors only
Registration by Landscape Architecture Design department, course not available via web registration; Open to non-majors by permission of Instructor

This is a course about becoming a licensed designer, a business professional and a citizen. It is intended to prepare students for the challenges and opportunities of life as a professional designer. The course will contain lectures organized around three major themes: The designer as a trained and certified "Professional" in traditional practice, and alternative roles, the designer as an operative in the world of business and commerce, and the designer as a provider of a particular set of professional skills using traditional and emerging methods for the delivery of professional services. Invited guests as panel members will present an outside professional perspective. Panels will be composed of many RISD grads, coming from a wide spectrum of years of experience and professional roles. All will be asked to discuss their world as professionals, and business people. All issues presented are common to the disciplines of Architecture, Landscape, and Interiors.
Major requirement; LDAR majors only
Registration by Landscape Architecture department, course not available via web registration

The advanced course studies multimedia drawing through the use of freehand and computer drawing. It explores the possibilities with the material and content of two dimensional expression. The class encourages greater connections with the design studios by testing and reevaluating design work through the lens of phenomenology and seriality. Scale and composition are emphasized in the detailed and constructed drawings that are required in class. ndividual investigations are developed throughout this advanced course to encourage a way of making marks that connect with the various modes of exploration in their studio work.
Major requirement; LDAR majors only
Registration by Landscape Architecture Design department, course not available via web registration
Estimated cost of materials: $225.00

What do these words mean and what is their relationship to each other in the architectural design disciplines? Each word is packed with complex and evolving meanings that reflect the state of human knowledge about the environments in which we live and in which we intervene. Each word reflects our understanding of systems, physical, cultural and social, biotic and abiotic, as well as our aspirations to conserve, restore, or reshape those systems. Each word is ubiquitous in the contemporary quest to construct a sustainable, resilient future. But do we really understand what they mean? Are they critically interdependent or can they be considered separately?
This studio will examine these questions with the twin objectives of establishing an evolving and dynamic understanding of the terms and generating working methods that respond to the complexities of scale encountered in the landscape.
Major requirement; LDAR majors only
Registration by Landscape Architecture Design department, course not available via web registration
Estimated cost of materials: $250

The Hybrid Drawing course develops an understanding of digital modeling and rendering in the first six weeks of the semester and then merges those digital techniques with manual tools of drawing. The digital skills developed through Autodesk 3ds Max Design program will include basic digital modeling concepts, transformation of objects, spline-based modeling, the development of compound objects, and rendering with textures to develop an understanding of light in space. Students will be encouraged to explore innovative new uses for the software and explore combinatory workflows with manual representation methods, enhancing their technical skills while developing creative methodology.

Through exploratory exercises, students will be given a more advanced and robust understanding of the possibilities of digital representation, building upon the foundations of Representation I and II. The purpose of this seminar is to impart the familiarity with the various media that will allow students to comfortably engage digital modeling in an integral drawing process which integrates manual and digital techniques in design.

Elective; LDAR majors only, Open to ARCH + INTAR by permission of instructor.
Estimated cost of materials: $250.00

This final core studio stresses large-scale design and planning issues, complex sites, and urban conditions. The city is a living organism which evolves in a particular locale with a particular form due to a combination of environmental and cultural factors. These factors, the forces they represent and the material results of their interaction form, in their interrelated state, what can be called "urban systems." The many forces at play within cities-social, cultural, economic, ideological, ecological, infra structural, morphological and visual-combine in various ways to created both an identifiable urban realm and the many sub zones within this. Yet, none of these factors is static and unchanging; and, as a result, urban systems, urban dynamics, and urban identity are likewise in a continuous state of flux. This studio will explore these systems and the complex issues at play in our urban areas and the potential for positive change.
Estimated cost of materials: $210.00
Major requirement; LDAR majors only
Registration by Landscape Architecture Design department, course not available via web registration