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Editor’s Note: This listing was updated on October 26, 2022

OVERVIEW

In one of the world’s most celebrated landscape architecture programs, the challenges presented by climate change are being faced head on. Students at the University of Pennsylvania are encouraged to critically challenge and extend the field’s scope (the Green New Deal Superstudio explores how a green deal would impact the world, with a website featuring data visualizations charting deforestation, mass extinction and more). And, in their research and teaching, professors and lecturers focus on areas such as global biodiversity, landscape urbanism, brownfield regeneration and more (and they write books on these topics too, such as Managing the Climate Crisis, by Jonathan Barnett and Matthijs Bouw). The department’s research hub, the The Ian L. McHarg Center for Urbanism and Ecology, is active in core areas of costal risk and resilience, megaregional urban growth, social and environmental role of public space in cities and land use planning related to climate change adaptation.

A proposal by University of Pennsylvania landscape architecture student Jayson Latady (MLA‘21) re-examines forest-management strategies in the Pacific-Northwest.

A proposal by Weitzman student Jayson Latady (MLA‘21) re-examines forest-management strategies in the Pacific-Northwest.

Boasting a faculty that has included professional heavyweights like James Corner and Laurie Olin (and other practitioners at his OLIN Partnership), UPenn offers two primary courses of study that lead to an MLA – a three-year program for students with an undergrad in a field other than landscape architecture or architecture; and a two-year program for those who already hold an accredited bachelor in either landscape architecture or architecture. Emphasizing the interdisciplinary nature of landscape architecture, the school also offers a variety of dual degree programs that pair landscape with, for example, city planning or fine arts.

Notable alumni

James Corner (Field Operations), Elliot Rhodeside (Rhodeside & Harwell), Christ S. Reed (Stoss Landscape Urbanism)

Notable faculty

Laurie Olin, Karen M’Closkey (PEG office of landscape + architecture), Matthijs Bouw (One Architecture and Urbanism)

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