The Bachelor of Landscape Architecture (BLA) degree is accredited by the Landscape Architecture Accreditation Board (LAAB). The BLA degree meets the academic requirements for licensure in all fifty states. LAAB standards require that first-professional degree curricula must include the core knowledge skills and applications of landscape architecture: landscape architectural history, philosophy, theory, values, ethics, practice, planning, design, implementation, and management. The program is a site-based design discipline that also deals with regional and larger-scale environmental/social issues. The curriculum, centered on a studio-based design curriculum, integrates ecological and social factors into the design and planning process. Students take a series of lecture and studio design courses, beginning with an introduction to landscape design principles in the first year and culminating in an advanced research and studio design project in the graduating year. Courses include Site Analysis and Ecological Principles, Site Design Studio, Urban Design Studio, and Professional Practice, among others. Digital design studios allow the integration of computer-aided design, GIS, and other analytical and communication tools with fundamental design and drawing skills.
Landscape architects are licensed professionals who analyze, plan, co-design, manage, and preserve the built and natural environments. The work we do has a significant impact on environmental justice, community health, and quality of life. In landscape architecture, you will learn to design landscapes and communities so they can withstand and be resilient in the face of pressing global and local problems. You will transform and protect built environments, lead design teams that include scientists, planners, engineers and architects, and real clients, communities, landscape managers, and municipal agencies. You will learn the creative skills of strategic design, and the technical skills needed to write contracts and turn your ideas on paper into functioning and performing landscapes. You will master 3D visualization software and advanced digital technologies to gather and analyze data, co-design, and construct landscapes that will form an infrastructure around which community and society will be built. You will acquire competencies and experiences in leading and crafting design processes and approaches, critically analyze and assess landscapes of natural and cultural value, communicate through artful storytelling (written/oral/visual), develop construction details, engineer landscapes for human inhabitation and to manage water, and engage state of the art computer applications, professional practice, and research methods for design.
