Given palpable, increasing climate and related disruptions, this 2026 Master of Landscape Architecture Capstone Studio asked students to provoke poiesis—the creative making of novel and needed change–through design.
The students scoped and developed design visions that:
- articulate new relations—among species, among actors, with place, within processes of design/making;
- undertake design experimentations—through more expansive and/or detailed studies and making; and
- create and express visions that are vital for more just and resilient futures.
Please find the attached individual project descriptions to learn more about the 2026 MLA Capstone Studio.
PROVOKING POIESIS
Relations + Experimentations + Visions for Resilience
Project Descriptions
“…it is now easier for us to imagine the end of the world than an alternative to capitalism.”
-Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby, Speculative Everything, p. 2.
It is somehow easier to imagine the dystopian destruction of the physical world than the restructuring of socio-political and economic systems that determine the physical, structural, aesthetic, and operational outcomes of built environments. This is our starting point: challenge accepted.
Learning from utopian visions from the 20th century, the work of science-fiction writers, notably Octavia Butler, and examples of manifestos by designers put forth over the last decade, students will develop their own design manifestos not for the end of the world, but for the end of capitalism as we transition to a decarbonized future.
Please find the attached studio project description as well as individual project descriptions to learn more about the 2025 MLA Capstone Studio
DESIGN MANIFESTOS FOR THE END OF CAPITALISM
Speculative Visions + Narrative Landscapes for a Changing Climate
Project Descriptions
Image Credit: WAI Architecture Think Tank (Cruz Garcia and Nathalie Frankowski), Cities of the Avant-Garde, 2011/2020.
