Landscape Architecture
Craig Barton — Department Chair
Kristina Hill — Director
The Landscape Architecture Program at UVA is committed to teaching design in a way that combines a technical understanding of ecological issues with forms that bring meaning to the contemporary landscape. We engage critical issues that we believe should influence the design of all landscapes, including attention to social justice, the need to renew industrial sites, and urban adaptations to global climate change.
Meet the faculty: video interviews
Meet the students: selected student commentary
If you wish to be a leader in this field, we invite you to join us in our work with urban communities and urban landscapes. Our educational program is demanding, but the exceptional opportunity we offer to learn, question, and develop your own approach to these urgent matters is rewarding as well.
Three recent changes made by our faculty reflect our commitment to leadership in our field: forming a joint Department with Architecture, creating a technical curriculum grounded in current ecological knowledge, and building an international network of collaborators with whom we can test the value of our approaches.
The Joint Department
Our decision to create a joint Department with Architecture is one that challenges the typical boundaries of both professions. It allows us to see design as a pursuit of answers to questions that crosses physical scales, from the interior and skin of a building to the spaces and surfaces of a city and its regional landscape. This partnership fosters collaboration by stressing design rigor and developing a shared language between the disciplines, bringing students and faculty into joint studios that address hybrid concepts of form and place in various international contexts. In addition to this primary partnership, we also rely on collaborations with colleagues in our School’s departments of planning and architectural history to create a rich intellectual and practical environment for our students.
The “Eco–tech” Curriculum
Our second major effort has been to establish an innovative curriculum model that draws on our strengths in theory and history while adding significant new capacity. First and foremost, our curriculum is centered on studio–based design. We support this core pedagogical approach with a combination of intellectually challenging courses in design theory and history, and an innovative new eco–tech curriculum that re–centers our teaching of technology around ecological knowledge. The eco–tech curriculum also links our technical courses directly to our studios, in order to bring current ecological and hydrological knowledge into our students’ design work. Our ambition is to present all of the traditional skills of the profession (grading, drainage, contract documents, plant identification, and so on) through an ecological lens, so that our students can address the critical issues of our time from a position that integrates scientific knowledge and cultural perspectives.
Next year and in coming years, our ongoing efforts to innovate in design education will involve thoughtful experiments that interweave digital and manual modes of representation. Our goal is to connect ideas to images in ways that allow us to explore issues relevant to our time and place, for example, the increasing recognition that dynamic processes such as flows of water, food, fuel and living organisms can be an explicit component of form–giving in built landscapes. We encourage our students to push the capacity of all representation techniques to the point where they generate new ideas about meaning, form, and dynamic change.
Expanding International Collaboration
Our program has made several recent commitments to international collaboration in design education. This is very important in both a global economy and an era of significant global environmental trends. We are likely to see major trends that affect many regions of the world, including investment patterns, water shortages, health threats, and climate change impacts. Students in our program are exposed to the ideas and design work of visitors from China, Mexico, and Europe, among other countries and regions. We offer a travel studio to Mexico City, in order to study the common challenges of globalizing cities. We have also begun a networked collaboration with the Leibniz University in Germany and Peking University in China to share ideas with two of the best landscape architecture programs in the world. With these commitments, our students are guaranteed an opportunity to make sure their knowledge and design ideas are relevant on an international as well as a national scale.
NEWS AND EVENTS
November 18, 2009
Nancy Takahashi Leads Hereford College into Sustainable Future
[by Dan Heuchert, UVa News Services] "A home away from home." "A hidden gem." "Fantastic opportunities to get to know faculty." "Fun social and service events." These were some of the phrases that students living in the University of Virginia's Hereford Residential College used to define their community during recent focus group sessions. The feedback belied many of the myths long associated with Hereford – that it is isolated, remote and undesirable. Given the strong show of support from residents, as well as from faculty connected to the residential college, the future of Hereford – uncertain a year ago, when plans called for the college to be relocated – has gained solid new footing. The decision for Hereford Residential College to continue in its current location follows an in-depth study conducted earlier this year by the Office of the Vice President and Chief Student Affairs Officer, which oversees the residential college program. As students deliberate their housing choices for the 2010-11 school year, Hereford Residential College represents an option for upper-class as well as first-year students. The deadline for students to apply to live in Hereford is Nov. 23. Applications are available online. Students and faculty have been discovering some of Hereford's hidden gems and creating a new sense of purpose through a variety of activities. Sustainability, in particular, is emerging as an element of Hereford's identity. With an abundance of natural beauty surrounding the college, students and faculty were inspired three years ago to create a vegetable garden with a propagation greenhouse on the grounds of the college. With the garden now expanded to 5,000 square feet, the Hereford "minifarm" is being used to build community and create a hands-on learning lab emphasizing organic planting techniques. This summer, students experimented with techniques such as companion planting, even incorporating fish carcasses and coffee grounds collected from local merchants as soil nutrients. The garden's experiment with planting lesser-known vegetables, such as napa cabbage, bok choy, lemon grass and sesame, was initiated to reflect the rich cultural diversity of the Hereford and University student community. In other projects reflecting a commitment to sustainability, students studied waste vegetable oil as a fuel alternative in a Hereford-sponsored course last spring, and built a filtering station that produces vehicle fuels from the used fryer oil from the kitchen in Runk Dining Hall. Physics professor Keith Williams headed up the project and is continuing to find ways to put Hereford's interest in sustainability into practice in the community. Williams is one of more than 30 University and community members who serve as faculty fellows at Hereford. The fellows do everything from teaching short courses to dining with residents. Other course offerings have focused on local foods and the cultural and ecological background of the Observatory Hill area where Hereford is located. In December, Hereford will join with Brown College to co-sponsor a short course and a visit to the University by well-known writer/philosopher/farmer Wendell Berry. Nancy Takahashi, who serves as the principal, or overall faculty head, of Hereford, is a practicing landscape architect and faculty member in the School of Architecture. She lives in the Vaughan House at Hereford with her husband, also an architect, and son. Another son is a fourth-year student at U.Va. "Hereford is building strong identity and community around two defining characteristics – first, its spectacular setting, where many outdoor activities and monthly banquets are hosted, and which is proving 'fertile ground' for our sustainable initiatives," Takahashi said. "Additionally, the rich diversity of our resident community has fostered many learning opportunities around the culture of food through film courses and ethnic meals that students take part in preparing in our home." Hereford Residential College was founded in 1992, the second residential college (following Brown College) established by the University. The third, the International Residential College, was founded in 2001. Residential colleges in many ways offer the student experience that Jefferson envisioned. Compared by some to the Academical Village, the residential colleges create smaller communities within the larger University where residents can come to know one another around shared interests. Students and faculty interact informally over food, film, a service project or other special events and programs. "The opportunities for leadership and personal growth are rich and real," said Christina Morell, associate vice president for student affairs, who oversees the residential college system.
November 17, 2009
Chris Counts Wins Design Competition
{from "New Raleigh" blog) Back in April the city announced the Moore Square Design competition. The competition was an opportunity for the public to get involved in the future of the square- a public that had many opinions about what that future should be. The juried competition had 79 applicants from all over the Southeast and the country. The competition was heavy and local firms showed up in a big way taking 2nd place and most of the honorable mentions. In the end though it was Christopher Counts Studio of Charlottesville Virginia who took the first place award. [to see images and read the complete entry, follow link in headline}
November 3, 2009
"Shaping the American Landscape" Includes Entries by Faculty and Alumni
Shaping the American Landscape - UVa Press
by Elizabeth Meyer A new reference work,"Shaping the American Landscape: New Profiles from the Pioneers of American Landscape Design Project" (University of Virginia Press), includes entries on two beloved figures associated with the early years of the UVa Landscape Architecture program, Professor Benjamin Howland and Lecturer Meade Palmer. This book edited by Charles Birnbaum (UVA Howland Lecturer 1992), Founder and President of The Cultural Landscape Foundation, is an encyclopedia of biographical entries about significant American landscape architects. It follows an earlier encyclopedia of biographies, "Pioneers of American Landscape Design" (2000), edited by Charles Birnbaum and Robin Karson. UVa Landscape Architecture faculty Ethan Carr, Elizabeth Meyer and Reuben Rainey as well as alumna Sue Nelson authored bibliographic essays in "Shaping the American Landscape". The subjects of their research include significant leaders in the National Park Service, Conrad Wirth and Benjamin Howland, modernist designers Lawrence Halprin and Robert Royston, and the Virginia's most-recognized twentieth century landscape architect, Meade Palmer, whose Warrenton-based firm was a training ground for dozens of influential landscape architects from Terence Harkness (Professor, University of Illnois), Hallie Boyce (Principal, Olin Studio) to Warren T. Byrd, Jr. (former UVA Dept Chair and Professor Emeritus).
October 21, 2009
Faculty to be Featured in Sustainable World Symposium
Timeless Design in a Sustainable World
TIMELESS DESIGN IN A SUSTAINABLE WORLD – at the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden, Richmond Wed and Thurs, October 28-29. This two-day symposium will feature our own Thomas Woltz, ASLA, of Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architecture Firm, Charlottesville, VA as well as Douglas Reed, FASLA, of Reed Hilderbrand Associates, Watertown, MA. AND will showcase the Richmond premiere of Prof. Timothy Beatley’s documentary, The Nature of Cities. The cost for the event is $70 for Wednesday only ($35 for students); $95 for Thursday only ($48 for students); and $130 for both days ($65 for students). The fee includes dinner Wednesday and/or lunch Thursday. Event description: If one legacy of the 20th century is its architectural prowess, might the 21st century be devoted to developing exquisite green spaces between the buildings where we live, work, and play? All around the world, growing urban populations are seeking communal spaces—parks, squares, plazas, piazzas, greenways and gardens—as essential components of daily life, places of respite and reflection, recreation, and celebration. This symposium will examine timeless principles of design—whether applied to the creation of a residential garden or a public space—that connect us to the natural world and in so doing, fulfill man’s innate desire for association with other living things. The symposium honors the legacy of Charles F. Gillette, a leader in the field of landscape architecture, by engaging the public in a conversation about the importance of landscape design and the value of Gillette’s ideals of elegance, superb craftsmanship, and seamless blending of architecture and garden. For the itinerary and online registration visit the symposium's website.
October 16, 2009
Emily Rogers (MLA'09) Quoted in Post Article on Dumbarton Oaks Vegetable Garden
At Dumbarton Oaks, Veggies Crop Up Once More By Adrian Higgins [Washington Post, 10/15/09] The renowned garden at the Dumbarton Oaks estate in Georgetown is celebrated as a work of art, the perfect union of landscape design, craftsmanship and horticulture. I've felt for years, though, that the garden was missing one essential element: a vegetable garden. Happily, that has been fixed. A band of volunteers, with the staff gardeners, are reflecting on their first season of raising salad greens, beans, lettuces, tomatoes, okra and more in one of the garden's most serene spaces, a large terrace anchored by a pair of distinctive clay-tiled pavilions. [for complete article, follow link in headline]
