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Scrappy Methods for Landscape Architecture

October 6, 2026 6:15 PM – 8:00 PM

Higgins Hall, HHN 304, 61 St. James Place, Brooklyn 11238

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A woman with long dark hair and round, pink glasses wears a gray sweater as she sits on steps next to a man who has wavy brown hair and a light beard. He is dressed in a black jacket and smiles at the camera. The background features a minimalist, industrial-style interior with concrete walls.

What tools do we have to question the forces driving design today? Pedagogies for Anti-Disciplinary Design Education (Routledge, 2026) gathers reflections from authors across twelve international institutions on the status of architectural pedagogy. This panel highlights one chapter—”Design Before Discipline: Scrappy Methods for a Contemporary Landscape Architecture Education”— that links the founding of the MLA with Pratt Institute’s experimental beginnings to explore how design, when physically practiced and literally taken into our own hands, can transcend the limits of bureaucracy, clients, budgets, and disciplinary rules.

Mark Heller is a computational designer and assistant professor of landscape architecture at Pratt Institute. He builds tools for urban and landscape analysis by integrating GIS into creative coding and parametric scripting environments.

Mariel Collard Arias is a Mexican architect and an Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture at Pratt Institute. Her work investigates and activates ancestral practices, tools, and materials that build landscape competence and cultivate unmediated relationships with the living world.

A collection of aging catalogues from the Pratt Institute, stacked and slightly overlapping. The catalogues vary in size and color, primarily featuring muted hues of gray with some fading and tearing along the edges. Text on the covers includes "CATALOGUE" and "PRATT INSTITUTE," along with respective years, such as "1891-92." The background is a light surface, and there are remnants of original bindings visible.