This class will explore the botanical, horticultural and ecological aspects of plants and plant communities. Through lectures and field trips, students will become familiar with the form, physical qualities, identifying characteristics, seasonal aspect, preferred growing conditions, native habitats and ecological function of common plants of New England. In addition, lectures will focus on contemporary ecological theories around disturbance ecology and ecological succession to gain an understanding of how designers can work with these forces to shape landscapes over time.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Landscape Architecture Students.

Major Requirement | MLA-I Landscape Architecture

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.

Open to Landscape Architecture Students only.

Registration by the Landscape Architecture Design Department; this course is not available via web registration. Please contact the department for permission to register.

Major Requirement | MLA-I Landscape Architecture

This seminar addresses advanced problems in landscape construction, materials, and site engineering. In this class, students will be asked to apply their knowledge of landscape technologies and materials gained from earlier classes into an abbreviated technical drawing set. Through the drawing set, students will gain an understanding of the different stages of design including; concept development, schematic design, design development, and construction documentation. This project will become the basis for understanding the how details and materials develop and change throughout the pre-construction process.

Enrollment is limited to Landscape Architecture Students only.

Major Requirement | MLA-II Landscape Architecture

This seminar focuses on the ecology, policy and design of freshwater and coastal systems. Through the study of water from the top of the watershed to the coast, this class focuses on the role of designers and allied professionals in the design and management of the dynamic interface between land and water. Through a multi-scalar approach, students will learn about the impacts of urbanization on water quality and coastal ecosystems, current approaches to the restoration of freshwater and coastal ecosystems, storm water management techniques and calculations, and the impact of climate change on water resources.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Preference is given to Landscape Architecture Students.

Major Requirement | MLA-I, MLA-II Landscape Architecture

As the third course in the History + Theory track, this class will build upon the theoretical foundation and research methods established in previous history and theory courses. Having explored critical approaches to studying the field of landscape architecture, past and present, this course will dive into a more focused throughline within the landscape discipline.
 
Throughout the course, students will be asked to engage with perspectives from within the landscape discipline and adjacent disciplines, such as environmental history, cultural geographies, anthropology, and Native American & Indigenous studies. Then, through group discussion and individual assignments, students will explore how these theoretical frameworks of landscape might be applied to landscape architecture practice and design in urban environments today. Ultimately, the course explores theory as a way to ask: how can landscape architects assert power, what existing structural systems must we engage with as designers, and how can we operate to subvert or change systems of power that we find unjust? Throughout the semester, the seminar will focus on specific themes arranged in thematic groups as explained in more detail in the Course Schedule section.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Landscape Architecture Students.

Major Requirement | MLA-I, MLA-II Landscape Architecture

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.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Landscape Architecture Students.

Major Requirement | MLA-I Landscape Architecture

The advanced course studies multimedia 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. Individual 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.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $225.00

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Landscape Architecture Students.

Major Requirement | MLA-I Landscape Architecture

This seminar builds on the class Material Logic to investigate and test landscape materials and construction methods with an emphasis on prototyping and digital fabrication. Students will learn to take an idea from concept to prototype to 1:1 construction. Through research, lectures, and site walks, this course will build student's understanding of current landscape construction methods and ask them to develop new materials and assemblies to respond to specific site and design considerations. Through exercises, students will advance their CAD and Rhino skills, as well as learn how to prototype ideas through the use of 3D printers and CNC machine.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Landscape Architecture Students.

Major Requirement | MLA-I Landscape Architecture

This seminar will bridge the foundations of landscape theory, research, and design methods in order to frame a process for students to examine contemporary issues in landscape architecture and define research questions that would contribute to creating new knowledge in the field. The course will include guest lectures from practitioners creating a body of research in the field. This seminar initiates the thesis process by asking students to formulate their own proposals for research through design.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Landscape Architecture Students.

Major Requirement | MLA-I, MLA-II Landscape Architecture

Students will work within a guided research topic to develop a design investigation with defined objectives, methods, and outcomes. As a 9-credit studio, this course will also require that students design and execute a material, representational, or theoretical experiment tied to a design detail within their investigations. In this thesis studio, students will have periodic formal reviews with an advisory panel, and will use feedback from the panel to produce a book that gives a written and graphic presentation of the research context, process, and findings as well as a final assessment of the outcomes.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $250.00

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Landscape Architecture Students.

Major Requirement | MLA-I, MLA-II Landscape Architecture

Since it's creation over 100 years ago, landscape architecture has expanded beyond horticultural preoccupations to a discipline that engages natural, political and cultural systems to build ecological and social resilience. This professional practice seminar explores contemporary practices of landscape architecture through the exploration of six current trends in practice: operating, researching, engaging, constructing, programming, and sustaining. These topics are explored and discussed through student research initiatives, in-class lectures, readings, case study presentations from a wide range of practitioners, office visits, and site visits. The goal of the course is to expose students to the variety of ways to practice landscape architecture today. Students are encouraged to ask questions, bring their own experiences to class, and be open to new ideas and perspectives.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Landscape Architecture Students.

Major Requirement | MLA-I, MLA-II Landscape Architecture

Envision Resilience Challenge: Lewiston-Auburn, Maine

Surella Segu (ARCH) / Elizabeth Hermann (LDAR) / Jonathan Bell (INTAR)

The 2026 Three Architectures ‘Superstudio’ is the first of what has been proposed as an annual advanced elective studio to be shared by the three Architecture departments:

Architecture (ARCH), Landscape Architecture (LDAR) and Interior Architecture (INTAR).

The focus is on urban issues and rethinking the city in light of climate impacts and social and environmental justice issues - including issues of food sovereignty, equitable access to resources, affordability in housing, walkability, sustainable practices, urban heat island effects, and flooding. The purpose of this interdisciplinary studio is to address these issues through a multidisciplinary lens and a framework of collaboration - all skills that are needed to engage in an impactful practice. 2026 also offers an opportunity to partner with the New England-based organization Envision Resilience whose signature Challenge is an annual place-based, multi-university design studio that takes place in communities at the forefront of climate challenges throughout the Northeast. The Lewiston-Auburn, Maine twin city area is the subject of the 2026 Challenge and invites students to engage technical, ecological and social systems simultaneously, and to consider integrated design strategies that respond to the lived realities of this urban area and it’s rich mixture of 19 th -century French Canadian immigrants and more recent arrivals from Somalia and other African nations, while envisioning more resilient futures for all. A number of questions guide this investigation:

• What does climate resilience look like for an inland, post-industrial city?
• How might the Androscoggin River, its canals and surrounding farmlands become connectors rather than barriers—ecologically, socially and spatially?
• How can adaptation strategies also advance housing stability, food security, environmental justice and economic opportunity?
• How can a city support agricultural uses in the context of a changing climate, increasing development pressure and growing demand for locally produced food?
• How can design help make futures that are not only safer, but more hopeful, tangible and shared?

The course is open to upper-level undergrads and graduate students.

Major Requirement | MLA-I, MLA-II Landscape Architecture

All Landscape Architecture graduate students at RISD are required to submit a Thesis Book that is the culmination of the work undertaken in the Advanced Design Research Studio (Thesis). The Thesis Book class is designed to support the written and graphic component of the Thesis Book. The course will provide resources to support the framing and reflection of the thesis work through writing. In addition, the graphic layout of the book will be used as a tool to help structure the inquiry into student's thesis topics.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $200.00

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Landscape Architecture Students.

Major Requirement | MLA-I, MLA-II Landscape Architecture

Autumn Site works is a grounded, creative space for a more attentive and reciprocal relationship between people and local biodiversity. Our weekly classroom will be an outdoor test plot at RISD’s Tillinghast Farm, where we will listen to visiting speakers, tend to plants and soil with our hands, and draw our close attention to the many life forms, forces, and surprises in the landscape. Each student will have the creative freedom to design an experimental land-based practice, installation, or event within the plot. Our work will be respectful of diverse ethics, from climate resilience to symbiosis and beauty. However, our learning direction will be focused on topics like the labor of caring for a landscape rich with relationships, local material sourcing for habitat creation, and community stewardship building.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $100.00

Elective

Spring Site works is a grounded, creative space for a more attentive and reciprocal relationship between people and local biodiversity. Our weekly classroom will be an outdoor test plot at RISD’s Tillinghast Farm, where we will listen to visiting speakers, tend to plants and soil with our hands, and draw our close attention to the many life forms, forces, and surprises in the landscape. Each student will have the creative freedom to design an experimental land-based practice, installation, or event within the plot. Our work will be respectful of diverse ethics, from climate resilience to symbiosis and beauty. However, our learning direction will be focused on topics like the labor of caring for a landscape rich with relationships, local material sourcing for habitat creation, and community stewardship building.

Elective

It is estimated that since the early 1600’s, North American land in the United States has lost half of the wetland habitat that provided essential areas for wildlife, held water on the land, hydrated soils, and supported vast areas of wetland vegetation. Wetlands provide essential fish and wildlife habitat, supporting rare plants, animals, and birds. Wetlands also store carbon, filter pollutants from water, and retain floodwaters. However, the legacy of viewing marshes and swamps as wasteland, continues to result in the degradation and destruction of many freshwater wetlands by human activity. In this field-oriented seminar students will spend class time within these important habitats, learning to understand them for their varied forms, their biodiversity, and their ability to store carbon and water with the potential of ameliorating on-going climate changes. Through field emersion, students will learn to see the landscape for the evidence it holds of what wetland habitat once was. They will identify the plant species that depend on wetlands for their survival, and will become intimately familiar with the water and soil that support these plant species. Extensive reading will support field observations and conversation in the field. The policies that brought about wetland destruction as well as protection, will be topics covered, along with wetland banking and restoration. Final projects for this class will offer students an opportunity to explore how their studio work can inform salient aspects of these watery worlds.  

Estimated Cost of Materials: $75.00

Elective

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.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Landscape Architecture Students.

Major Requirement | MLA-I, MLA-II Landscape Architecture

Thesis Open Research provides a scaffold for graduate landscape architecture students to pursue thesis-related research during the Wintersession period between the Fall Landscape Research, Theory, and Design (RTD) or Sustainability Lab Studio courses and the Spring Thesis Studios. The course offers time, structure, and guidance for research conducted in anticipation of the formal design phase of the thesis.

Elective

In this course, we will study the historical, cultural and aesthetic foundations of the still life genre. Perceived as one of the lowest genres of art since ancient Greece, the still life has continually served as a negative space in which the dominant social and cultural values can be materialized, fetishized and preserved. Today, dismissed almost as an antiquated vestige of the classical tradition, the still life has in fact acquired a multiplicity of form and has become a site in which contemporary values can be identified, molded and reinterpreted. To arrive at our current moment, we will examine four major historical movements within the genre and their wider contexts:

1. 2. 3. Dutch Golden Age still life paintings in relation to Dutch trade and colonialism Modernist still life paintings in relation to the fracturing social order and advent of mass democracy Pop art still life paintings in relation to the rampant consumerism of post-war United States.

4. Contemporary still life paintings in relation to social and political discourse Some artists that we will pay particular attention to: Adriaen Coorte, Rachel Ruysch, Edouard Manet, Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Giorgio Morandi, Andy Warhol, Wayne Thiebaud, Jennifer Packer, Kerry James Marshall, Njideka Akunyili Crosby and Vija Celmins.

This course will be delivered in a combination of the seminar and studio formats. The coursework will include in-class exercises, alongside slide lectures, readings, and class discussions. Additionally, the students will make one still life painting for each of the four themes.

Open to non-Painting majors only. This course may fulfill elective requirements in other majors but does not count toward Painting major requirements.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $80.00 - $200.00

Elective

The dream is a never-ending source of inspiration for artists, challenging reality with raw emotion and imagination. Often unclear and uncanny, a dream invites limitless investigation and interpretation. Monotype printmaking, a process that has supported artists' practice throughout history, possesses a similar nature to that of the dream: singular, backwards, fast, and unstable.

This course will explore how to use the language of dreams to serve a body of work. We will explore the significance of the dream and dreamer in the work of The Getty Tondal, Odilon Redon, Hilma af Klint, Demetrio Urruchúa, Bea Parsons, and Jung's Red Book, and many more. Using the monotype process, students will utilize dream imagery to refine their critical thinking skills. Throughout the course, students will complete weekly studio assignments that highlight the monotype techniques demonstrated in class, including additive, subtractive, ghost, trace, and stencil, and end with a final assignment exhibiting their accumulated development. Additionally, two research-based presentations, a daily dream journal, and individual and group critiques will support the evolution of students' conceptual and technical skills.

By the end of the course, students will be able to build imagery and translate narratives through monotypes. They will have developed an understanding of symbolic dream imagery, feel confident in presenting and participating in group discussions, and possess an extensive personal visual language. With no prerequisites, this introductory monotype course is presented by the painting department and is open to undergraduate and graduate students from any department.

Open to non-Painting majors only. This course may fulfill elective requirements in other majors but does not count toward Painting major requirements.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $265.00

Elective