studio courses

ARCH 181, ARCH 182 Students entering the design sequence in their freshman year take two terms of studio work: Architecture 181 and 182. These courses consist of "projects and exercises intended to familiarize the student with fundamental concepts of environmental design. Students develop techniques of problem formation and sound bases for design judgments; understanding basic design theory is stressed." Majors in architecture, landscape architecture and interior architecture share this common, beginning design experience. Courses in design theory and media, ARCH 201 Introduction to Architecture and ARCH 222 ___Nancy's class___, and LA 260 Understanding Landscapes supplement studio work.

LA 289 LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN
LA 289 Landscape Architectural Design is the first studio experience for the majority of undergraduate landscape students, who transfer into the department after a year of preparation elsewhere. Co-requisites include LA 260 Understanding Landscapes, if not previously taken, a full year sequence of Plants LA 326, 327, 328, LA 350 Landscape Media and LA 352 Digital Landscape Media.

The studio program consists of a series of short, intense projects, choreographed as a two-term sequence to engage a variety of fundamental and prototypical landscape architectural problems. The sequence gradually builds up to projects of longer duration in order to demonstrate the higher levels of integration and comprehensiveness required of design decisions.

Development of a common design language and improving skills in visual thinking are stressed in this beginning year of landscape architectural design. Cross-fertilization between LA 289, other portions of the Planning and Design Sequence and Subject Areas are encouraged. The studio might for example incorporate themes from LA 260 Understanding Landscapes, integrate instruction in LA 350 Landscape Media, or involve second year design students with a portion of a project concurrently being undertaken in an advanced studio.

LA 289: The Objectives
1. to re-awaken creativity and the creative process;
2. to introduce basic landscape design theory;
3. to build design vocabularies and an appreciation of well-designed places;
4. to engage a range of landscape design issues, scales, media and methods;
5. to teach students to think about, value and effectively use their past environmental experience and present sensibilities as professional design sources;
6. to introduce students to professional values, interests and responsibilities;
7. to introduce skills and tools associated with design problem solving such as: site inventory techniques; site analysis strategies; visual thinking; concept generation, evaluation and development; and basic communication media;
8. to build an appreciation for craft, a striving for the highest quality work, and an understanding that studio proposals are expected to be the very best the student can do at their particular level of development.
9. to introduce the processes of design criticism and the developmental and evolutionary nature of design recycling;
10. to begin learning to work creatively and responsibly in group situations.

LA 289 is a close encounter with each student's creative center. For many it is an awakening. It is intended to rekindle the desire to make, to produce, to actualize, to learn from landscapes, from one another and, in general, to become more environmentally aware. For some it will be a major challenge to their world view. The need to know where we have come from, where we are now, what's going on around us, with a view of where we are headed is basic to our nature and is intensified in the design studio. At the very least, the design studio experience requires each student to begin to define and/or form a vision of his/her environment and where he/she fits within it.

LA 389 LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN
For continuing design students, the three-studio sequence of LA 389 Landscape Architectural Design, is where the language of landscape architecture and the making of places start to become fluent. The connections between landform, planting, drainage, construction, and people and their needs is more carefully articulated in design proposals of increasing skill and sophistication, especially at site scales. Contributing positively to the transformation of places becomes an achievable objective as studios draw on the knowledge and skills accumulated from subject area classes.
For students with other baccalaureate degrees, this is the entry-level design studio experience. These students enroll in a special two-term LA 389G/media sequence designed to bring them along as quickly as possible. They rejoin the group of continuing LA 389 students in the spring term. Experience has shown that a majority of mature students with talent and other life experience are able to handle 4th year design work after an intense three terms of tailored preparation in the program.

LA 389: The Objectives
1. To develop a foundation for landscape architectural design with particular attention to:
a. the history, theory and culture of landscape architecture;
b. problem identification, articulation and design development of conceptual ideas;
c. principles of design, form, space and place;
d. application of communication skills at various stages of design resolution (visual, verbal, written);
e. awareness of sources of landscape imagery;
f. awareness of design processes and values;
g. integration of cultural and ecological factors

2. To teach specific skills and tools associated with design problem solving such as:
a. site inventory techniques;
b. site analysis strategies;
d. concept generation, evaluation and development;
e. group dynamics;
f. design development media, visual thinking, diagramming, plans,
sections, elevations, perspectives, axonometrics;
h. design choices and expression;
i. tools for evaluation, critiquing (and being critiqued); design judgments;
j. research skills, information gathering;
k. learning to question "the problem", looking beyond its borders;
l. integration of information from other courses -- site analysis, site development, plants, site construction etc.
In some cases projects may also involve:
m. program development;
n. simulation (modeling);

3. To engage integrative and comprehensive design work in which students develop effective design solutions through the application of the following:
a. multi-scale contextual proposals;
b. site specific proposals;
c. facility with value-expressive form, spatial composition, design;
d. facility with planting design and technical concepts;
e. appropriate study and communication media;

In some cases projects may also involve:
a. land use plans;
b. design policies and guidelines;

Typically, the third year design projects that are chosen as project vehicles are of moderate complexity and of a scale that enables some detailed design development of conceptual ideas. The garden, neighborhood park, school, community square, playground and courtyard are prototypical LA 389 design offerings. Recent expansions of metropolitan park systems in Oregon have provided a rich laboratory of project opportunities at this studio level. Projects at this intimate, experientially explicit scale typically elicit responses which are personal and tangible. Plants, materials, construction methods and historical precedents take on new meaning as these materials and ideas become more and more integrated into the design process.

LA 489/589 SITE PLANNING AND DESIGN
The LA 489/589 Site Planning and Design studio sequence broadens and deepens the planning and design experience. Issues of context become more important. Understanding the value and complexity of existing places is stressed. Projects usually have real sites and are often real urban and community design problems. The scale and design complexity of problems increases; site plans often required phased development over time. Students participate in problem definition and program development. Exercises mix individual and group work and demand detailed design resolutions. Proposals are expected to integrate design, technical and material concepts into new wholes. Planting design considerations are expanded through coursework in LA 431 Planting Design Theory. Design criticism is more thorough and rigorous. Students are asked to use appropriate media to rehearse and recycle design proposals at all significant project scales. Joint studios with architecture, design-build and construction-oriented studios are typically offered at this level and design competitions have also been offered.

LA 489/589: The Objectives:
1. To provide a framework where:
a. individual responsibility and accountability for work become essential;
b. knowing a place well precedes ideas about how to change it;
c. design contexts are understood in both physical and cultural terms, i.e. people, places, processes and ideas all have significant contexts;
d. problem definition and programming are stressed;
e. many possibilities are generated and evaluated;
f. skills are sharpened for discussing, criticizing and communicating design ideas;
g. special topics in site planning and design are explored: e.g., recreation; reclamation; urban design; housing; transportation.

In the third term of the fourth year, students have a studio option. They may elect to take an additional LA 489/589 studio, a studio in architecture or interior architecture, a special design project with a faculty sponsor, an approved practicum with a landscape architectural firm or public agency or fulfill the studio requirement through an approved travel abroad program.

FINAL YEAR
The final year design sequence is made up of an advanced planning studio in landscape architecture and the Comprehensive Project studio. Successful completion of fourth year studio work is a prerequisite for the fifth year program.

LA 494/594
Landscape Planning and Design LA 4/594 Landscape Planning and Design, offered each fall term, focuses on the topics, theories and methods of complex large-area landscape planning and design. An over-arching goal of this studio is to expose students to planning and design at several landscape scales within one project so that they begin to understand the relationship between planning policy and landscape design. In recent years it has involved a multi-scaled project including a regional inventory, resource analysis for site selection, and a more intensive land use or site planning problem for a small area within the larger study area. Students are asked to conduct a landscape-scale analysis for sites of several square miles and make land use and environmental management recommendations at that scale. They are then asked to apply those recommendations at the site scale (often one to three hundred acres) through preparing a landscape plan. Furthermore, they are asked to prepare detailed design studies of smaller spaces within the site such as parks, plazas, trails, homesites, and gardens.
Class projects over the last five years have included planning and design for to-be-urbanized urban reserve areas all around the Portland Urban Growth Boundary, planning of a rapidly developing portion of Wasco County on the Oregon side of the Columbia Gorge, and planning and analysis of the rapidly changing and environmentally degraded Muddy Creek watershed in the southern Willamette Valley. This studio course is required of all BLA students. It is taught by two professors, recently including Professors Girling, Jones, Johnson, Hulse and Ribe.

LA 494/594 Objectives:
1. To expose students to a broad array of landscape planning issues occurring at various scales of resolution. Typically, these have been in the areas of:
a. land resource assessment: forests; water; coastal resources
b. land planning policy,
c. urbanization and residential development: new communities;
d. studying landscape values: utopias;
e. carrying capacity: water and energy; quantitative and qualitative limits;
f. recreation and leisure: land use transformations; park and open space systems.

2. To teach students various methods, procedures and technologies associated with land planning. Typically these have included:
a. analytical modeling, various kinds of analysis;
b. gaming, scenario development;
c. computer applications; GIS;
d. data gathering, documentation, retrieval, modification;
e. research methods;
f. post-construction evaluation;
g. advanced studio investigations

3. To engage integrative design work in which students develop and evaluate effective planning proposals. Included have been:
a. land use development and management plans,
b. environmental assessment reports,
c. specific site plan proposals and design rehearsals.

LA 499 - COMPREHENSIVE PROJECT (8 credit studio)
This studio emphasizes design development and communication of multi-scaled environmental planning and design projects. Project finding, describing, programming and preliminary schematic exploration precedes this studio-oriented class and is taught in fall term through LA 490, Preparation for Comprehensive Project. LA 490 combines instruction in design theory with the development of the student's own comprehensive project program.

Comprehensive Projects are individually chosen and independently developed. Project management and studio criticism is student directed, with the design faculty and outside resource people as consultants by appointment. The instructor for LA 499, Comprehensive Project Studio, serves as class coordinator and project design mentor to the class.

Design proposals are expected to achieve appropriate resolutions of the chosen project at each significant project scale and include an effective rehearsal of the qualities of experience the proposals would generate. Comprehensive projects are expected to include a design development component at an appropriate scale and include important material and technical considerations. A formal presentation of the project to the department is a class requirement.
Comprehensive Project is open only to final-year BLA students and is intended to be the most mature and well-developed project design experience in the Planning and Design Sequence. The Department maintains a collection of rendered copies of these Comprehensive Projects, archived in the AAA library, as an important educational resource and historic record.

LA 490 + LA 499: The Objectives:
1. Fulfilling personal needs: For some, Comprehensive Project is primarily an opportunity to take more responsibility for a whole design experience, or to work on some still to be mastered aspect of planning and design processes. For others, it is a time to explore and develop a favorite place or burning issue, or to put together a set of drawings that might impress a prospective employer. The number of personal objectives is always equal to or greater than the number of people who take the class, an educationally important part of the experience that is respected and supported.

2. Fulfilling program objectives: It is the tradition and the intention of the Planning and Design Sequence that the Comprehensive Project is meant to be:
a. an individually chosen, multi-scaled project in which the student takes the lead and bears the major portion of the responsibility for managing their work.
b. a more complete project than the usual one-term studio allows, with better programmatic, precedent and developmental materials, and a good rehearsal of the way that people will experience the place being proposed.
c. an opportunity to focus on programming and other design methods by paying closer attention to designing as a process.
d. an opportunity to consider more deeply the many value dimensions of landscape architecture and their expression in landscape form and pattern.
e. an opportunity to organize and give a public presentation of a complex design project.
f. the student's most mature and complete project to date.


STUDIO REVIEWS
Studio instructors participate in a programmed exchange as reviewers at mid-term and serve as studio reviewers along with outside guests at the end of each term. During Review Week, which is always the last week before final exams, students are expected to attend the design conversations and evaluations taking place at all levels of the Planning and Design Sequence as an important part of their studio education. The lower level studios are usually reviewed first so that less experienced students are free to attend the more experienced studio presentations.
The intent of studio reviews is to provide students with individualized constructive feedback on the resolution and communication of the particular studio problem. Faculty teaching the studio typically orchestrate the review and provide appropriate guidance for students and reviewing faculty. Guest faculty to the studio conduct the reviews. The format is up to the instructor, however most instructors in the Landscape Architecture Department assure that some one-on-one discussion of student works occurs. A typical "roving review" schedule is attached.

STUDIO SCHEDULING
The University of Oregon operates on a quarter system. Each quarter is eleven weeks in duration, the final week of which is dedicated to examinations and grading.
Mid-terms: During weeks five and six most faculty schedule mid-term studio reviews. Prior to the start of each term faculty are asked to confirm a mid-term review date and time. The department head then schedules faculty reviewers to attend these reviews.
Final reviews: In the Landscape Architecture and Architecture Departments and the Interior Architecture Program, the tenth week is dedicated to studio reviews. Final meetings for other classes occur in the ninth week. (See attached sample studio schedule) The associate department head of Architecture coordinates with the Landscape Architecture department head to develop the final review schedule. Early in the term faculty must fill out a form identifying the preferred final review date and time and availability for attendance at the final reviews. All teaching faculty are required to be available for the Landscape Department reviews- both mid-term and final. (Instructors will by necessity be absent from their studios at least two sessions during the mid-term review period.)

STUDIO EVALUATIONS
Studio classes in the School of Architecture and Allied Arts are not graded, but are taken on a pass/ no-pass basis. The goal of this approach is to establish a non-competitive learning environment and to encourage creativity, individual exploration, collaboration and peer learning. Student work is evaluated by several means during the term. Throughout the term the instructor is responsible for tracking the development of each individual relative to the learning objectives of the class (These should be provided to the students.). The public mid-term and final reviews are opportunities for the students to obtain direct feedback on their work from others. At the same time, the instructor is responsible for providing an evaluation to each student at these important junctures. Mid-term evaluations can vary, from private meetings, to desk crits, to written evaluations. It is recommended that the instructor keeps a written record of the evaluation provided to each student. Final evaluations must include both a written evaluation and a one-on-one "Exit Interview" between each student and the instructor. Final Evaluation forms are provided in hard or digital formats by the department office. The original should go to the students and a copy must be provided to the department office for the student's file.
The class and the instructor are also to be evaluated. The department provides a class evaluation packet to each instructor during the week prior to Review Week. Students are to fill these out while the instructor and any TAs or GTFs are out of the room. A monitor should be appointed to collect the evaluations and return them to the department office.