Design Studio Thesis is the terminal, capstone project in the Master of Landscape Architecture Program. The studio provides the structure for students to conduct independent design research, resulting in the completion of a comprehensive landscape architecture project. Students are expected to formulate a precise thesis question and rigorously investigate critical and generative design methodologies that are relevant to and reflective of the field of Landscape Architecture. The investigation must be theoretically framed and may focus on an evolving site condition, cultural histories, infrastructural challenges, material inquiries, and so on. The result of the student driven design research is the production of an advanced visual presentation intended to demonstrate well-informed disciplinary thinking.

LAN3025 builds on past Visual Communication courses and explores themes of media creation in the pursuit of site investigation of each student’s individual selected site. While course deliverables remain focused on the development of static, dynamic, and auditory media, the discussions and assignments will strongly parallel that of concurrent LAN3051. 

Prior to the start of the course, students should have already selected a study site and should have already cataloged a broad range of research of written, visual (spatial and non-spatial), and auditory sources related to their site. Using this body of research as a starting point, throughout the term students will be asked to undertake a thorough exploration of their thesis site via investigative analysis through drawing, modelling, generating, and composing. Assignments are cumulative and prompt students to explore and discover overlaps between typically disparate socio-cultural, environmental, economic, geopolitical, and historical site data to form new understandings of site which prompt potential future design questions. 

Advanced Site Technologies examines the relationship between construction technologies and the design of urban landscapes. The course will explore issues in urban technology pertaining to landscape architecture construction techniques and the manner in which different planning, ecological and environmental systems, technical regulations, innovative design technologies and material uses exert influence on design. 

Over the duration of the course students will be provided the opportunity to develop and refine skills pertaining to advanced site engineering and construction principles. Students will be encouraged to develop a working knowledge of emergent landscape technologies in the design of urban landscapes.

The purpose of the course is to study a site through its stakeholders’ (or actors) eyes and define their needs, following a two-step process:

First, you will explore how notions of nature, environment, and landscape (NEL) are understood, represented, and shaped by stakeholders at your thesis site. These notions form part of a worldview, that is, the lens through which you will approach the site.

Second, your exploration of the site will allow you to pinpoint and define, by the end of the
term, the focus, i.e., the research/design questions, to which you might apply a design solution.

Fundamentally, in your study of the site, you will consider all potential stakeholders (or actors), be they humans or non-humans. Actors are not only agents who exercise agency and therefore shape the site. They also include those subjected to external agency, whose voices and actions are not always accounted for. They can be local, national, or global social groups. Their views of NELs and interests in the site often conflict with each other. To help build a critical approach to sites and discourses, lectures and readings will introduce students to a variety of conceptual and methodological frameworks from a wide range of disciplinary fields. These include cultural geography, environmental history, historical and political ecology, environmental law, indigenous studies, landscape archaeology and ecological anthropology.

Professional Practice in Landscape Architecture interrogates the profession’s evolving parameters, and how one can participate effectively in the discipline. As students prepare for graduation, this course provides an idea of what comes next. The class discusses modes of landscape architecture and interdisciplinary practice, project process and implementation, and the membership and responsibilities of the professional landscape architect.

This course studies the profession in broad terms:

• What is the full range of work landscape architects do?
• How do projects get built?
• What goes on in an office?
• What happens next?

LAN3200H - LAN3210H: Rotating electives on the theme of landscape architecture design. For current offerings please see faculty website.

LAN3300H - LAN3310H: Rotating electives on the theme of landscape architecture and the environment. For current offerings please see faculty website.

LAN3400H-LAN3410H: Rotating electives on the theme of Landscape Architecture Techniques. For current offerings, please see faculty website.

LAN3500H - LAN3510H: Rotating electives on the theme of plants and planting. For current offerings please see faculty website.

LAN3600H-LAN3610H: Rotating electives on the theme of Landscape Architecture Practice. For current offerings, please see faculty website.

LAN3700H - LAN3710H: Rotating electives on the theme of landscape architecture and society. For current offerings please see faculty website.

LAN3800H-LAN3810H: Rotating electives on the theme of Landscape Architecture Technologies. For current offerings, please see faculty website.

Landscape Architecture Topics elective courses are typically conducted in seminar format, as focused investigations of theory and/or practice in relation to landscape architecture.  These electives are intended to complement and broaden core course content, allowing students to further develop topical areas of expertise in research and/or design methodologies.

LAN3900H - LAN3910H: Rotating electives on the theme of Architecture and Health. For current offerings please see faculty website. 

A course designed to enhance language skills. Prose composition, sight translation, stylistic analysis of classical Latin prose.

The purpose of this course is to deepen students' familiarity with Latin literature and to improve their skills in reading texts in ancient Latin. Readings may be selected from prose or verse according to the instructor. See departmental website for annual offering details.

The purpose of this course is to deepen students' familiarity with Latin epic poetry and to improve their skills in reading texts in ancient Latin.

The purpose of this course is to deepen students' familiarity with Latin historiography and to improve their skills in reading texts in ancient Latin.

The purpose of this course is to deepen students' familiarity with Latin literature of the Roman Republican period and to improve their skills in reading texts in ancient Latin.

The purpose of this course is to deepen students' familiarity with Latin literature of the Roman Imperial period and to improve their skills in reading texts in ancient Latin.

This course code tracks the completion of the Latin Sight Examination. For more information consult with the Department.