The past 20 years Landscape Architecture has received a renewed interest and the subject has grown into an important support for urbanism.

Students will be introduced to landscape architecture's broad scope and how its topics have been influencing the latest developments in urbanism with a special focus on its latest extension; Landscape Urbanism.

Students attending this course will have gained insight in contemporary landscape architecture's general vocabulary, methods and challenges. The students are also expected to understand landscape architecture's relationship to architecture and urbanism

The course offers both lectures and a seminar. Lectures will focus on decisive moments within contemporary landscape architecture: mapping, land/territories; public space, infrastructure, water, urban microclimates and other contemporary challenges within the urban landscape.

The seminars will focus on discussing the ongoing individual assignment, students will be guided to a broad understanding of urban landscapes. The study trip goes to a complex urban landscape architectural project in Oslo.

TStudents will be given an assignment where they are asked to investigate a particular case-study of their own choice. Students are encouraged to examine examples within contemporary urban landscape architecture, for example to explore typologies of urban public space, or to study the organization of infrastructure and its ecological challenges. The students will be asked to present their research work as a 45 minutes PPI presentation.

An external jury will be present at this presentation. The presentation will count 50 % of the course grade. 25 % for activity in class diskussions and 25 % for attendance.

The course is assessed as pass/fail, subject to the Regulations for Master’s degree programmes at Oslo School of Architecture and Design, § 6-14.

Mandatory reading  

Almy, D. (2007). On landscape urbanisme. Austin, Tex.: Center for American Architecture and Design.  

Bava, H., Hoessler, M., Philippe, O., & Diedrich, L. (2009). Territories: from landscape to city. Basel: Birkhäuser.  

Corner, J. (1999). Recovering landscape: essays in contemporary landscape architecture. New York: Princeton Architectural Press.  

Recommended reading:

Cosgrove, D. (1999). Mappings. London: Reaktion Books.  

Daily, G. C., & Ellison, K. (2002). The new economy of nature: the quest to make conservation profitable. Washington: Island Press.  

Desvigne, M., Tiberghien, G. A., Basdevant, M., & Costedoat, D. (2009). Intermediate natures: the landscapes of Michel Desvigne. Basel: Birkhäuser.  

Hargreaves, G., & Czerniak, J. (2009). The alchemy of landscape architecture: Thames and Hudson.

Lassus, B. (1998). The landscape approach. Philadelphia, Pa.: University of Pennsylvania Press.  

Latour, B. (2004). Politics of nature: how to bring the sciences into democracy. Cambridge, Mass.: HarvardUniversity Press.  

Margolis, L., & Robinson, A. (2007). Living systems: innovative materials and technologies for landscape architecture. Basel: Birkhäuser.  

McHarg, I. L. (1992). Design with nature. New York: J. Wiley.  

Miller, A., Martin, C., & Kerr, S. (2007). Landscape urbanism. Melbourne: The School of Architecture and Design, RMIT University.

Mostafavi, M., & Doherty, G. (2010). Ecological urbanism. Baden: Harvard University Graduate School of Design.

Schama, S. (1995). Landscape and memory. London: HarperCollins.  

Spirn, A. W. (1984). The granite garden: urban nature and human design. New York: Basic Books.  

Swaffield, S. (2002). Theory in landscape architecture: a reader. Philadelphia, Pa.: University of Pennsylvania Press.  

Waldheim, C. (2006). The Landscape urbanism reader. New York: Princeton Architectural Press.  

Weiss, A. S. (1998). Unnatural horizons: paradox and contradiction in landscape architecture. New York: Princeton Architectural Press.

Wright, E. (2008). Future cities. Melbourne The School of Architect and Design, RMIT University.

Magazines:  

Archis  

Conditions  

Daidalos  

JoLA (Journal of Landscape Architecture)  

JoLA (E-journal)  

New geographics

´scape: the Inernational Magazine for Landscape Architecture and Urbanism  

Topos  

Topos (E-journal)  

Also, you might want to check out following thematic websites:  

LE:NOTRE  

LE:NOTRE°Mundus (Le Notres non-european partners network)  

ECLAS (The European Council of Landscape Architecture Schools)  

ELASA (European Landscape Architecture Students Association)  

NLA (Norwegian Landscape Arhitects Association)  

IFLA (International Federation of Landscape Architects)  

European Urban Landscape Partnership  

Recommended reading:

During the individual coaching sessions each student will be given texts and or litterature related to the topic of their assignment.