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landscape.risd.edu
contact: ldardept@risd.edu
student life at RISD
 more info on applying/curriculum/facilities/faculty/visiting artists + critics
Landscape Architecture is situated at the interface between complex cultural and environmental worlds. The profession addresses design issues inherent in a range of landscape typologies and scales, from localized interventions to global systems. RISD’s program prepares students to critically examine pressing environmental and humanistic concerns and develop individual routes towards innovative place-making.
The department offers two paths to the Master of Landscape Architecture degree: MLA I, a three-year program for students with undergraduate degrees in unrelated fields, and MLA II, a two-year program for students entering with accredited pre-professional degrees. Qualified applicants with previous undergraduate or graduate degrees in architecture and related design fields may be considered for the two-year advanced standing program.
At the core of both the MLA I and II programs is the design studio, the forum for the investigation of aesthetic, ecological, cultural and technological issues. The curric-ulum includes the study of drawing, theory, ecology, cultural geography, plants and technology.
The MLA program is unique in that it offers oppor-tunities for collaboration and growth through interaction with students and faculty in RISD’s other art and design disciplines. As they develop a common language, students are able to enter into discourse that reflects the changing nature of their professions. This cross-disciplinary frame-work prepares emerging designers for the increasingly complex scope of concerns addressed in the collaborative forum of contemporary practice.
The August preceding the first fall semester, all students attend Design Foundations/Field Ecology — an introduction to design language and the ecological and cultural forces that have shaped the New England landscape. During Wintersession students earn credit for full- and part-time internships with professional firms. RISD also offers credit-bearing Wintersession travel opportunities, conducted on an individual or group basis over a period of six weeks. Research studios provide further opportunities for investi-gation in varying regional and international contexts; recent studios have included global explorations in Bangladesh and Greece, partnerships with public agencies and design/build initiatives with schools in the region.
In the final year students develop a thesis body of work and a methodology for testing their conceptual premises through committed design projects. The MLA program is fully accredited by the American Society of Landscape Architects. |
