This intensive pre-term course prepares students for their academic career in landscape architecture with a particular focus on familiarizing students with (1) the region’s ecological and cultural context; and (2) tools and techniques for seeing and representing landscape. It is structured in two parts with the first focused on field studies: both exploring the ecological and cultural landscapes of the Los Angeles region and developing field-drawing skills – perspective, depth of field, texture, tonality, sequence (etc). The second part is dedicated to developing media techniques for reading, representing and designing landscape as a dynamic medium. Particular software platforms will be stressed in order to facilitate ease of entry into the design studio curriculum (Adobe Creative Suite, Autocad, Rhinoceros, GIS).

In this course students will learn advanced digital workflows to conduct contemporary landscape architecture design research. A specific interest of the course is to address how these workflows address dynamic landscape systems, existing and proposed.

In recent years, the need for advanced design methodologies has become ever more pressing as landscape projects are asked to manage—or serve as—dynamic systems. Increasingly projects must perform dynamic environmental services and/or manage dynamic risks, while still providing quality open space. To effectively navigate the multifarious requirements of these projects, landscape architects must invent workflows, specific to the challenges of each project, where specialized analyses operate alongside typical design tools. For example, to design a flood control channel they might interface various advanced real-time evaluative tools (e.g. hydraulic modeling, habitat analysis, and economic evaluations) within an iterative community-inclusive design process.