GLA304 Implementing landscape sustainability in an urban context
Credits (ECTS):15
Course responsible:Kathrine Strøm
Campus / Online:Taught campus Ås
Teaching language:Engelsk
Limits of class size:25 students
Course frequency:Once a year.
Nominal workload: Total workload of 375 hours. A maximum of 93.75 hours (= 25% of 375 hours of the total workload per student) will be structured teaching, consisting of lectures, assignments, tutoring and feedback sessions, short presentations, reviews, and peer reviews. The remaining 75% of the students’ workload (= a maximum of 281.25 hours) have to be dedicated, by each student, to the related studio work, in the form of self-study. This is where those materials and outcomes have to be generated, which are presented and discussed with the students, in the studio sessions as such (during structured teaching).
Teaching and exam period:Spring parallel.
About this course
The course focuses on landscape sustainability in an urban context, where environmental, social and economic aspects are intertwined. Attention will be brought to the role of the landscape architect and decision making in urban development projects.
A case area will be used, for 2024 FIlipstad in Oslo was used, and the class was in dialogue with Oslo municipality and the land owner Hav eiendom. A case area with an ongoing project development in an urban area will be chosen for 2025 - and meetings with the local authorities and the developers is a part of the learning process. The students will design an intervention that can be a part of solving the site’s challenges when it comes to sustainability.
Students are expected to explore design strategies that, while responding to some of the pressing 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, SDG (https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdgs) will produce landscapes that can simultaneously perform ecological, social, and political roles.
Through studio work, field discovery, lectures, and desk critiques students will gain insight into the course topic and the specificities of the selected case study. Throughout the semester, instructors will encourage a sense of autonomy and self-directedness, emphasizing an active, goal-oriented process to foster students' ability to develop an independent design project.
Learning outcome
The course focuses on landscape and sustainability and is centered on maintaining and enriching contemporary and succeeding generations' well-being and quality of life.
- Develop a self-generated research question through in-depth analysis, well-structured methodology, appropriate design exploration, and alternative design scenarios relevant to the inquiry.
- Develop and carry out a process-oriented design project by applying a creative thinking approach.
Knowledge :
- understanding of ownership and legal processes in decision making
- understanding of communication and the role oft the landscape architect
- design solutions that solve complex challenges
- Formulate advanced and effective landscape strategies that include core knowledge skills of landscape architecture and planning theory, ethics, and critical thinking..
Skills :
- Professionally communicate ideas and concepts of landscape sustainability in landscape architecture orally, textually, graphically, and through multiple media.
The students are guided through the project by lectures, short presentations, assignments as well as continuous feedback to the developing work. Feedback is provided by the responsible staff, and in the form of peer reviews, during studio time, interim and final reviews.
Lectures and in-class discussions on equitable development, social and environmental justice, and community resilience.
Individual research and in-class discussion on the course topic.
Selection and analysis of contemporary landscape design projects related to the course topic.
Desk critics, Group discussions, Peer reviews, and Pin-up presentations
Fieldwork and site analysis.
Studio is a supreme place in design education; it is a physical space that becomes alive with activities if and when teachers and learners breathe life into it. Thus, it becomes a marketplace for ideas, a vital environment, and an essential factor in design learning. Students are expected to work in the studio during class time as as indicated in the course schedule.
On a trial-and-error basis of continuous testing and vetting of their ideas, students take responsibility to drive their individual proposals and projects. Instructors provide guidance and assistance. Instructors will emphasize the 'learning by doing' design theory: through self-initiative and self-discovery, the students will gain a knowledge base that informs future decision-making.
In the course of organized teaching, conducted by the instructors, suitable input is presented, regular feedback is provided, the project development is guided and supported, and reviews allow the students to develop and defend their work.
Guidance to relevant references, precedents, best practices, literature, or other elements of the professional canon will be provided.
- GLA301, GLA302 er equivalent
Portfolio.
Grading:Pass/fail
All submissions have to be submitted in the English language.
Portfolio Grading: Letter grades- An external examiner reviews and evaluates the final project outcomes.
Compulsory attendance on review days and specific workshops. This will be marked in the semester schedule. Students are expected to attend all classes.
Compulsory presentation of the individual studio outcomes at studio tutoring and feedback sessions, and all reviews.
- A maximum of 93.75 hours (= 25% of 375 hours of the total workload per student) will be structured teaching, consisting of lectures, assignments, tutoring and feedback sessions, short presentations, reviews, and peer reviews.
- Students enrolled in the Master of Landscape Architecture for Global Sustainability programme.
- Priority to the Master of Landscape Architecture for Global Sustainability programme. Other master students in landscape architecture are also welcome.