Landscape Architecture and Environmental Design

The Concentration in Landscape Architecture and Environmental Design (LAED) is an advanced research degree program focused on interdisciplinary inquiry related to landscape meaning, spatial patterns, the built environment, and environmental design. The Geography Graduate Group (GGG) faculty who teach and mentor students in the LAED concentration work in the areas of landscape architecture, urban and community design, sustainable development, public participation, environmental planning, landscape ecology, cultural and historical studies. The degree prepares students for advanced research, practice and teaching in landscape architecture and related fields of environmental design.

Landscape architecture and environmental design concern the relationship between people and their environment. Typically, this is manifested through the planning, design, and use of the physical and everyday environment. However, as design is human intent expressed in the material world, a central focus is how society shapes the physical landscape across different scales. Landscape architecture and environmental design is seen as an interactive and dynamic process where each informs the other. Analyses of these processes require a knowledge base in areas as diverse as culture, ecology, policy, economics, and history, among others areas. An appreciation for interdisciplinary inquiry and understanding is a common thread that defines the LAED concentration. Some examples of graduate-level study in LAED include analyses of landscape patterns using methods in geographic information science, design and planning at advanced levels, historical and cultural studies of landscapes and places, and the development of advanced methods and techniques in citizen participation.

The concentration in Landscape Architecture and Environmental Design is based in the Landscape Architecture Program of the Department of Environmental Design at UC Davis and it also includes a multidisciplinary group of faculty who are members of the Geography Graduate Group, the Community Development Graduate Group, the Ecology Graduate Group and other graduate groups at UC Davis. The program is also closely affiliated with research organizations at UC Davis including the John Muir Institute of the Environment, Institute for Transportation Studies, Center for the Study of Regional Change and California Center for Urban Horticulture. It also cooperates closely with UC Berkeley and courses are available there to supplement graduate study.

In addition to a professional career in geography offered through the GGG, the LAED concentration will prepare students to: (1) teach and conduct research in academic programs in landscape architecture, architecture, and planning; (2) serve as researchers and analysts in public, private, and non-governmental research institutions; and, (3) assume leadership positions in agencies engaged in issues of planning and design at the local, regional, national, transnational, and international levels.