LAR-785P Landforming

3 Credits

The ground beneath our feet is made. It has been sculpted by erosion and deposition and, for millennia, constructed by humans. The process of moving and shaping earth to create landform is one of the fundamental design acts in the field of landscape architecture. This practice is at once technical and aesthetic, precise and poetic. Landform creates experience, guides water through space, and becomes the medium for new soil and plant life: it is both cultural and ecological. Grading can be minimal or massive in scale, occur everywhere along a city-to-rural gradient and across the private and public realms. This class expands the tools and workflows for grading while deepening design sensibility for creating topography. Students develop a precedent study and an original design through drawings and physical models. This design-based seminar includes technical workshops, field sessions, seminar discussions, lectures, and design reviews.