This course has two main learning objectives: to explore the relationships between research and design practice and to scope a successful Capstone/MFP project. Professional landscape architects and architects generate and consume research from a broad range of subject areas. Climate adaptation, environmental justice, human health, materials and construction techniques, ecological restoration, and public history all impact and are impacted by design practices. How do designers know what constitutes “good” research? How do professionals apply research in practice?

Successful Capstone/MFP projects are framed around questions rooted in student interests that can be explored through design. These projects are also grounded in explorations of related peer-reviewed research and in multi-layered site investigations. 

This course focuses on the developments, theories, movements, and trends in architecture and urban design, from World War II to present.

Through lectures, readings, discussion, and research, we will analyze buildings and spaces—architect designed and "vernacular"—in the context of social, political, economic, technological, and ecological change. As we address these issues, we will examine the ways design and daily life, performed locally, interacted with national and global systems and flows; and the role the built environment has played in advancing structures and concepts of class, gender, race, ethnicity, and power. Students will gain a broad familiarity with the history of American buildings and landscapes, develop critical frameworks for analysis, and enhance their understanding of the environments they interact with every day—as designers, citizens, consumers, and professionals.

This course bridges the gaps among architectural research, design, practice. Forum for students to independently develop research topics/implement research methods related to architectural scholarship/practice, aided by classmates, instructor, guest lecturers. 

This course advances architectural practice topics not normally covered in curricula are examined/evaluated as foundation for licensure/ARE 4.0 testing processes.

Sustainable Design Theory and Practice provides a foundational understanding of the history, theory, and ethics of sustainable design processes and practices. The course will be grounded in the current context of regional and global ecological issues, and bridge theory to design practice. The course will emphasize approaches to sustainable, resilient and regenerative practice for the re-integration of built and natural systems.

Underlying the course is the proposition that designers and leaders need to understand the philosophy and rigorous trajectory of restorative and regenerative design which aspires to make positive impacts on the socio-ecological health of places with every act of design, planning and construction. The course will be a platform for collective and individual exploration of alternative approaches to meet global ecological challenges and develop an individual trajectory for future practice.

This course provides students with the concepts and tools to understand contemporary urban ecology and the flow of water within and between the city, district, site, and building scales. Throughout the course we study and test different ways of understanding (representing) the flow of water in natural systems and compare those to the systems of our contemporary urban and rural environments. It is essential to think about designing site and building’s water systems in concert with one another and think in terms of balances and cycles. We use short group and individual exercises, case study examples, focused readings, in-class workshops, and application of digital and analog tools to provide students hands-on opportunities to investigate design issues and determine outcomes. 3 field trips that travel out into the city to learn about urban water and ecological systems are a critical part of the class.