Courses

Julie Johnson
5 Credits, Fulfills BA EDS Major & Urban Ecological Design Minor
TTh 2:30 – 4:20PM  <– NEW TIME!

SLN: 16245

Social, environmental, and climate injustices manifest in the landscapes we inhabit, impacting both human and more-than-human communities.  Focusing on a series of case studies, we will explore equitable design processes and places that catalyze more just futures.  With guest speakers, in-class exercises and discussions, projects, fieldwork, and readings, we will examine meaningful design principles for change; how impacted communities give voice and action in collaborative design processes; what roles environmental designers and others may play; and what is needed to foster systemic change.

 

 

Shaunta Butler
6 credits A&H, fulfills BLA prerequisite, BA EDS major, UED minor
Period I registration limited to students declared UED minor, BA EDS major, or BLA applicants
MWF 1:30-5:20
SLN: 11772

LARCH300 is an overview of the broad spectrum of the landscape architecture profession. Students will be introduced to the creative design process via contemporary methods, applications, and practices of landscape design. They will develop the basic skills and fundamental concepts of landscape architectural design and explore site design through projects that require them to draw, research, build, analyze, collaborate, and present ideas that encompass various facets of the field.

Reach out to Jennie jencyli@uw.edu for questions/if you are applying to the BLA program this year for priority registration access

 

Elizabeth Umbanhowar
5 Credits A&H/SSc+Writing, counts towards BLA major
TTh 11:30–2:20

Undergraduate SLN: 16247

Undergraduate Honors SLN:16248

Graduate SLN: 16261

This course explores landscape sites, systems, and symbols from the early 19th century until the present moment, stressing the intersections and entanglements of people and place in history with current politics, experiences, and ecologies. Through creative “lab” exercises, diverse media, and collaborative processes, we will critically examine the writing, production, and performance of landscape and its histories thematically through the diverse lenses of: power and ownership; memory and representation; knowledge and experience; labor and production; materiality and technological innovation; climate disruption and social change; identity and emotion; and race, class, and gender.

 

Lynne Manzo
3 credits, Fulfills A&H/SSc, Div, BLA Major, BA EDS Major & UED Minor Requirements
TTh 10:00 – 11:20AM

This course is designed to help us think deeply about place and our role and responsibilities in caring for the world around us. We shape our environments in increasing impactful ways, altering the trajectory of the globe with climate change and continued social injustices. We need to understand people-place relationships better if we are to alter that trajectory for the greater good. 

Using a multidisciplinary lens, this class will examine a range of place-based issues and placemaking efforts including: 

•       Place meanings + attachments
•       Relationships to nature
•       Multispecies transitions and design
•       Urban change + the right to the city
•       The politics of public space
•       Design activism

Through in-class activities, lectures, writing reflections, and simple field exercises, this course will help you think more critically about the physical world around you and your relationship to it.

 

Lynne Manzo
3 credits, Fulfills Socio-Political Dimensions Selective Requirements
MW 10:00 – 11:20AM

This seminar is designed to help us think deeply about place and our role and responsibilities in caring for the world around us. We shape our environments in increasing impactful ways, altering the trajectory of the globe with climate change and continued social injustices. We need to understand our relationships to the physical environment better if we are to shift that trajectory for the greater good.

Using a multidisciplinary lens, this seminar will examine a range of place-based issues and placemaking efforts including: 

•       Place meanings + attachments
•       Relationships to nature
•       Multispecies transitions and design
•       Urban change + the right to the city
•       The politics of public space
•       Design activism

Through discussions, in-class activities, lectures, writing reflections, and simple field exercises, this seminar will help you think more critically about the physical world around you and your relationship to it.

 

 

 

LArch 300 Introduction to Landscape Architecture

L Arch 300: Introduction to
Landscape Architecture

Shaunta Butler
6 credits A&H, fulfills BLA prerequisite
MWF 1:30-5:20, Summer full term (A + B)
SLN: 11772

LARCH300 is an overview of the broad spectrum of the landscape architecture profession. Students will be introduced to the creative design process via contemporary methods, applications, and practices of landscape design. They will develop the basic skills and fundamental concepts of landscape architectural design and explore site design through projects that require them to draw, research, build, analyze, collaborate, and present ideas that encompass various facets of the field.

 

LArch 210 Environmental Design & Sustainability

Alicia Daniels Uhlig
5 credits, Counts towards NSc  requirements
MW 2:30-4:20PM

SLN: 17109 or 17110 for FID Students

The health of our world and the quality of our lives and future generations depends on how we act now and plan for our future built environment. This foundational course will use the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to examine the social, environmental, and economic concerns that all nations must confront in the face of issues such as climate change, poor health & wellbeing, and unsustainable growth & consumption. We’ll examine case studies of strategies in design, planning, and policy to engage these issues through just and equitable practices in the built environment

Open to all students

 

LArch 352 History of Landscape Architecture

Elizabeth Umbanhowar
5 Credits A&H/SSc+Writing, counts towards BLA major
TTh 11:30–2:20
SLN: 16357

Landscape architecture is more than the study of elite, private gardens. Landscape histories bear witness to the diverse experiences, ideas, and people that, through time, have shaped places both exalted and everyday. In this survey, we critically examine the writing, production, and performance of global landscapes and their narratives from the Paleolithic to the mid-19th century in this critical survey. Through diverse archives, landscapes, and media, we will learn to “read” cultural and designed landscapes and their histories offers important life skills: to challenge the legacies of colonialism and oppression, interrogate our present-day environmental crises, and apply our learning to navigate uncertain futures.

Open to all students

 

LArch 341 Site Design and Planning

Daniel Winterbottom
3 credits,  Counts towards A&H requirements
TTh 11:30 AM – 12:50PM

SLN: 17113

“Site design and planning is the art and science shaping the places we live and work. Its aim is foundationally moral and aesthetic: to enhance everyday life.” – Lynch and Hack, Site Planning

Through field trips, lectures, drawing, and discussion, this course explores the art and science of shaping sites. Balancing broad conceptual frameworks with practical tools, we will survey the ecological, cultural, political and technical dimensions that influence site design and planning in contemporary practice.

Open to all students

 

 

Spring 2025 Courses Open to Non Majors + Special Topics

 

LArch 212 Designing the Future

Keith Harris
5 credits, Counts towards SSc/A&H requirements
MWF 1:00-2:20PM

SLN: 15900

How do landscape architects and other designers shape our cities, our lives, and our futures? Through fieldwork, hands-on activities, research, and discussion, this course explores innovative and interdisciplinary design thinking and practice that addresses critical human issues from the local to the global scale.

Open to all students

 

 

 

LArch 322 Sensory and Sustainable Planting Design for Cities

Hongfei Li
3 credits, Counts towards A&H & UED minor requirements
MW 11:30 – 12:50PM

SLN: 15092

As cities adapt to climate change, can urban environments be designed as living systems that foster resilience, ecological health, and human well-being? In this course,  we will explore planting design as an embodied, sensory-driven practice that connects people with the dynamic processes of urban ecosystems. Students will investigate how the human experience of plants intertwines with the structure and function of sustainable environments. Course materials will integrate design skills, climate resilience, and environmental psychology, emphasizing the role of plants in supporting biodiversity, mitigating urban stressors, and enhancing human flourishing in the city. Assignments for this course will involve a variety of means, including art-making, graphic novel development, design thinking, and observational skills.

Open to all students

 

LArch 363 Ecological Design and Planning

Celina Balderas Guźman
3 credits, BLA requirement, Counts towards NSc requirements
TTh 10:00 – 11:20AM

SLN: 15903

This lecture course offers an introduction into the complex field of ecological design and planning which integrates ecological research and knowledge into design and planning projects and applications. The educational experiences supports all students interested in applied approaches for improving the sustainable and resilience of urban and rural places with an emphasis on systems thinking, ecological rehabilitation and restoration, and creative problem-solving.

Open to all students

 

LArch 423 Plant Identification and Management

Lauren Iversen
3 Credits, Counts towards MLA / BLA Plant ID. Can be applied to UED Minor.
TTh 2:30 – 5:20PM
SLN: 15906

Plants are the living communities that sustain life. A familiarity with plants and their ecosystems is foundational to building resilient landscapes. Students will learn to identify PNW native plants, North American native, and introduced species through multiple ways of identifying including pattern recognition and dichotomous keys. Each week will include a plant identification walk nearby or on campus. The course will explore ethnobotanical relationships with plants, as well as biocultural, ecological and maintenance considerations. This course also offers students the opportunity to broaden the range of skills used in landscape architecture to include ecological design, horticulture, taxonomy, and the ways plants influence our culture and sense of place.

 

LArch 454 The Nature of Cities

Elizabeth Umbanhowar
5 Credits, A&H/SSc+Writing, counts towards BLA major, MLA BE History Selective, Historic Preservation and Urban Design Certificates
MWF 10:00 – 11:20 AM
SLN: 15909

In the wake of a global pandemic, deepening ecological crises, and the continued escalation of socioeconomic divisions and political upheavals, interrogating the complex histories of urban landscapes offers critical perspectives that both can inform and empower us in  the face of challenging and unpredictable futures. In this course, we will deploy Seattle’s landscape as a foil for interrogating the environmental design histories of global cities. By comparing historic and contemporary urban narratives, we will engage in meaningful conversations about how histories are produced and disseminated, and why interpretation of the past matters more than ever today. Through the History of Urban Landscapes: The Nature of Cities we will examine the entangled narratives of colonization, capitalism, and climate change through a landscape architecture lens. And explore the role of identity, memory, migration, technology, design, preservation, social justice, and the more-than-human world in the novel ecologies that are cities. Participants will hone vital skills in critical design thinking and observation, research and analysis, representation and communication. We will also experiment with diverse methods and cultivate proficiencies in imagination, interpretation, and empathy. In so doing, we prepare ourselves to act as effective, thoughtful, creative, and agile agents and advocates in the landscapes we inhabit.

 

Drawing in Design Workshop

 

1 Credit Workshop (By Application)

See Drawing in Design page for more information 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LArch 498 B LA BIM Seminar

 

Vincent Javet
3 credits, Counts towards MLA Media Selective
T 6:00 – 8:50PM

This seminar combines practice-based guest lectures, course readings, and applied tutorials to explore Building and Landscape information Modeling (BIM/LIM). Learn about the underpinnings of BIM/LIM, its role in contemporary practice, and how to leverage information modeling to shape the future of computational landscape architecture.

This Seminar is open to all students.

Software explored includes:

• Autodesk Revit – Building information Modeling (BIM) Software:Available as a free download with student status – https://www.autodesk.com/
• Autodesk Forma – AI-Powered Analysis and Schematic Tool: Available as a free download with student status – https://www.autodesk.com/
• ENVIRONMENT – Landscape Information Modeling (LIM) Software [for Revit] Available as a free download with student status – https://arcintelligence.com/
• Land F/X – Landscape Information Model (LIM) Software [for Revit] Available as a free download with student status – https://www.landfx.com/
• RhinoLands – Standalone Landscape Information Modeling (LIM) Software Available as a free download with student status – https://www.rhinolands.com/

 

 

LArch 498 Community Engagement for Social Cohesion

Eric Higbee
3 Credits, Counts towards MLA Socio-political Dimensions of Design Selective
TTh 1:30 – 2:50PM

In a time of social fragmentation, how do we work with place-based communities in design, planning, and policy? Together, we will explore this question in the context of the current and future practice of community engagement. We will dive into the world of social psychology to uncover the secret sauce for bridging our group differences and fostering shared identities. We will explore engagement’s potential to cultivate social cohesion and foster pluralism. And we will evaluate, learn, and practice a toolkit of methods for community engagement, including outreach strategies, steering groups, community event structures, meeting facilitation, and community construction. All Aboard!

 

 

LArch 563 Ecological Design & Planning

 

Windy Bandekar
3 credits, Counts towards MLA BioPhys Ecology Selective
MW 11:30 – 12:50PM

Open to all graduate students.
This advanced seminar examines the integration of ecological systems with contemporary landscape infrastructure through critical readings, case studies, and student research. Pairing foundational ecological concepts with innovative design applications, students will explore how ecological understanding shapes cutting-edge landscape architectural practice. Through intensive reading, writing, and analysis of significant projects, the seminar develops frameworks for designing landscapes that work with natural processes while addressing urgent environmental challenges.

 

 

LArch 572 Research Methods for Design

 

Lynne C. Manzo
3 Credits
TTh 10:00 – 11:20AM

This class is open to all graduate students.

This graduate seminar focuses on a range of qualitative approaches for conducting research to support design. Methods include photo-voice, mapping, world cafe, archival research, interviews, surveys and data visualization. The course will also cover different ways of knowing, how to develop feasible research questions, research/ design ethics & power relations. This class takes an applied approach and will give you hands-on experience to build your research skills and help students prepare for you Capstone Project.

Learning Goals:

• Better understand the connections between design and research
• Understand the ethical underpinnings of research including values & power relations
• Gain first-hand experience using research methods through exercises & fieldwork
• Learn what method to use in response to certain situations, site & questions
• Develop ideas for a possible Capstone Project

 

Winter 2025 Courses Open to Non Majors + Special Topics

 

 

L Arch 300 Introduction to Landscape Architecture Studio

Shaunta Butler
6 credits A&H, BLA prerequisite
MWF 1:30-5:20
SLN: 16356

LARCH300 is an overview of the broad spectrum of the landscape architecture profession. Students will be introduced to the creative design process via contemporary methods, applications, and practices of landscape design. They will develop the basic skills and fundamental concepts of landscape architectural design and explore site design through projects that require them to draw, research, build, analyze, collaborate, and present ideas that encompass various facets of the field. Students will have a portfolio by the end of the course, and be prepared to apply for the BLA program if desired.

L Arch 361 Human Experience of Place

Lynne Manzo
3 credits A&H/SSc+Div, counts towards BLA major
TTh 10:00-11:20
SLN: 16359

Although we do not always recognize it, we are deeply affected by our physical surroundings. The environment affects our perceptions, thoughts, feelings & behavior. It affects us as individuals & as a society. Conversely, humans shape our environment in increasingly impactful and unprecedented ways. We are altering the trajectory of the globe with climate change & continued social injustices. But in all this socio-spatial precarity, there is a “spaciousness of uncertainty” that makes room for us to act and initiate positive change.

This class, taught by an environmental psychologist, examines a range of people-place relationships and placemaking efforts using the lens of the social sciences (psychology, geography, anthropology and sociology) and the design disciplines (landscape architecture, architecture and urban planning). Topics include place attachments, relationships to nature, climate justice & adaptation, urban change & displacement, grassroots community development, the politics of public space and design justice. 

Through lectures, in-class activities, writing reflections and exercises, this course will help you to think more critically about the physical world around you and the factors that contribute to the human experience of place – on both an individual and communal level.

L Arch 353 Modern Landscape History

Elizabeth Umbanhowar
5 Credits A&H/SSc+Writing, counts towards BLA major
TTh 11:30–2:20
SLN: 16357

This course explores landscape sites, systems, and symbols from the early 19th century until the present moment, stressing the intersections and entanglements of people and place in history with current politics, experiences, and ecologies. Through creative “lab” exercises, diverse media, and collaborative processes, we will critically examine the writing, production, and performance of landscape and its histories thematically through the diverse lenses of: power and ownership; memory and representation; knowledge and experience; labor and production; materiality and technological innovation; climate disruption and social change; identity and emotion; and race, class, and gender.

L Arch 498C Perceptions of Nature in the Dense City 

Laure Heland
3 Credits
W 6:00-8:50 PM, counts towards MLA Socio-political Dimensions of Design Selective
SLN: 16367

There is a current trend to design green environments and infrastructure in dense cities, which claim to be “Natural” or “representing Nature.” What is the “Nature” that designers and planners are referring to – and for what purpose? Is Nature a pristine condition in an untouched environment or can it be a hybridization of human and natural systems? How do such definitions and perceptions impact both professional approaches, and the public acceptance of new design idioms?

L Arch 561 Human Experience of Place 

Lynne Manzo
3 Credits, counts towards MLA Socio-political Dimensions of Design Selective
MW 10:00-11:20
SLN: 16373

Although we do not always recognize it, we are deeply affected by our physical surroundings. The environment affects our perceptions, thoughts, feelings & behavior. It affects us as individuals & as a society. Conversely, humans shape our environment in increasingly impactful and unprecedented ways. We are altering the trajectory of the globe with climate change & continued social injustices. But in all this socio-spatial precarity, there is a “spaciousness of uncertainty” that makes room for us to act and initiate positive change.

This class, taught by an environmental psychologist, examines a range of people-place relationships and placemaking efforts using the lens of the social sciences (psychology, geography, anthropology and sociology) and the design disciplines (landscape architecture, architecture and urban planning). Topics include place attachments, relationships to nature, climate justice & adaptation, urban change & displacement, grassroots community development, the politics of public space and design justice. 

Through discussions, exercises, readings, journaling, creative activities and writing, this course will help you to think more critically about the physical world around you and the factors that contribute to the human experience of place – on both an individual and communal level.

As a graduate level seminar, this course is focused on dialogic learning and cultivating reflexive and equitable practice.

As a graduate level seminar, this course is focused on dialogic learning and cultivating reflexive and equitable practice.

 

Autumn 2024 Courses Open to Non Majors + Special Topics

 

L Arch 210 Environmental Design and Sustainability

 

Ken Yocom
5 credits NSc
MWF 2:30-3:50
SLN: 23410

The health of our world and the quality of our lives and future generations depends on how we act now and plan for future generations. This foundational course will use the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to examine the social, environmental, and economic concerns that all nations must confront in the face of issues such as climate change, cyclical poverty, and food insecurity and examine case studies of strategies in design, planning, and policy to engage these issues through just and equitable practices.

 

 

L Arch 341 Site Design and Planning

Catherine DeAlmeida
3 credits, A&H
TTh 11:30-12:50
SLN: 17230

“Site design and planning is the art and science shaping the places we live and work. Its aim is foundationally moral and aesthetic: to enhance everyday life.” – Lynch and Hack, Site Planning

Through field trips, lectures, drawing, and discussion, this course explores the art and science of shaping sites. Balancing broad conceptual frameworks with practical tools, we will survey the ecological, cultural, political and technical dimensions that influence site design and planning in contemporary practice.

 

L Arch 352 History of Landscape Architecture

Elizabeth Umbanhowar
5 credits, A&H/SSc+ Writing
TTH 4:00-5:50
SLN: 17231

Landscape architecture is more than the study of elite, private gardens. Landscape histories bear witness to the diverse experiences, ideas, and people that, through time, have shaped places both exalted and everyday. In this survey, we critically examine the writing, production, and performance of global landscapes and their narratives from the Paleolithic to the mid-19th century in this critical survey. Through diverse archives, landscapes, and media, we will learn to “read” cultural and designed landscapes and their histories offers important life skills: to challenge the legacies of colonialism and oppression, interrogate our present-day environmental crises, and apply our learning to navigate uncertain futures.

 

L Arch 498A Sensory Design

Amy Wagenfeld
3 credits
T 3:00 – 5:50 pm
SLN: 17245

 This seminar will provide students with an overview of the eight sensory systems and their importance in design. Providing future design professionals with a footing in the importance of the sensory systems and their relevance to built environments enriches design decisions by giving students a better understanding of how the sensory systems guide our daily lives, resulting in more thoughtful, adaptive, and inclusive designs. With increased interest in designing for individuals with neurodiversity this seminar is timely and important. 

Weekly small group assignments culminating in a final major project as well as information sharing, guest lectures, and experiential learning will factor significantly into the course structure.

 

L Arch 498B Drawing Seminar

Course topic + information coming in summer.
1 Credit Workshop (by Application)
See Drawing in Design page for more information

L Arch 498C Empathetic Design

Lynne Manzo
3 credits
TTh 11:30 – 12:50
SLN: 23592

Fulfills MLA Socio-political Dimensions of Designs

This new seminar will explore our dynamic relationships to place, the land, and other species in a context of precarity & change, and consider what it means for designers to have a deeper societal accountability. It will begin by considering foundational concepts such as empathy, the ethic of care, interrelationality and collective well-being as frameworks to approach design. In doing so, we will consider what empathetic design might look like in today’s world.

Readings will include excerpts from the following texts. Sacred Civics, Arts of Living on a Damaged Plant, Empathetic Design, Belonging: A Culture of Place, Mushroom at the End of the World, Ecological and Social Healing, as well as built projects, art installations, spoken word, videos, and GIS StoryMaps.

This class will consider the following issues and their intersections:

• Collective well-being and colelctive action
• Inclusivity and the politics of belonging
• Ethic of care empathy & reciprocity
• Interrelationality & multispecies entanglements
• Justice-to-come and visions of the oppressed
• Recognition, reconciliation & reparations
• Storytelling for a hopeful future

To invite imagination and creativity, assignments will be open to creative work such as concept models, collages, palimpsests, and videos as well as written reflections.

L Arch 498E Urban Forestry

Cynthia Updegrave
3 credits
Th 1:30 – 4:20
SLN: 23846

Fulfills BLA Ecology/Adv. Plants Directed Elective, MLA BioPhysical Ecology Selection, Urban Ecological Design Minor

This course is focused on the trees and the urban canopy within the City of Seattle. Students will utilize in-field engagement with urban forests to understand critical nature-based solutions for mitigating the impacts of a changing climate, and explore the development of just and equitable solutions for the  protection of communities most impacted by the changing climate.

The course will emphasize the human dimensions both historically and currently within urban forests.Topics will include the many ways ecosystems support human health and well-being, the impacts of colonization, urbanization and social policies on ecosystem fragmentation, and connections between disparities in canopy cover and human health.

We will apply and practice this knowledge in supporting a community-based Native Forest Garden, the first greenspace project co-managed by local Tribes and the City of Seattle.