THEORY COURSES
The theory courses of the Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA) programme provide students with foundational and advanced knowledge in landscape systems, history, professional practice, environmental design, construction and technology, urban design, and specialized landscape discourses.
THEORY (CORE)
LA 6821 (3 Credits): Plants, Planting, and Landscape Systems
The course introduces students to plants and environmental awareness as basic design elements in landscape design. The course emphasizes on the introduction to native plant communities of Bangladesh, their ecological contexts and habitats, their shape, size, spatial attributes, color, texture, and other sensorial qualities. Here, the students will learn to use plants as spatial design elements and learn the basics of planting design. Also, the course will focus on the concept of geology and native ecosystems, climatic issues, soil compositions, hydrological systems, urban ecology, and how ecologically sensitive environments perform.
LA 6831 (3 Credits): History of Landscape Architecture
This course introduces students to the history of landscape architecture with a focus on understanding the morphology and design of gardens, parks, cities, and open spaces across cultures, geographic locations, and periods. With the awareness of historical instances and ideologies, students will learn to critically examine how the designed landscapes transform over time with cultural, social, and political processes and their relationship with other disciplines such as art, technology, architecture, cultural geography, planning and ecology. Students will critically evaluate historical present-day landscape design practices in Bangladesh.
LA 6851 (3 Credits): Professional Practice & Ethics in Landscape Architecture
This course examines the practice and ethics in landscape architecture through the consideration of contemporary frameworks for professional services, the legal and financial context in which they operate, and the documentation and delivery of landscape design projects and products. The students will get experience in the preparation of project manuals, legal documents, construction contracts and other operational documents. A short-term internship may be embedded within the course.
ARCH 6901 (3 Credits): Analytic Methods
Data and decision-making process. Concepts used in quantitative analysis-data, information, data collection and analysis, variables and values. Summarizing tables and charts; Statistics. Sample and sampling techniques; & statistical inferences. Relations and association. Use of computer data analysis, SPSS.
THEORY (OPTIONAL)
The optional theory courses are organized into specialized groups covering broader environmental and urban design contexts, construction and technology in landscape architecture, and specialized landscape discourses.
Group 1-Broader Context including Environment and Urban Design
ARCH 6105 (3 Credits): Environmental Design in Tropical Cities
Influences of Buildings and other urban artefacts on ambient climate, climate modification having energy implications. Interaction of urban form and space with the processes of urban environment. Outdoor urban environment in the context of tropical areas with special reference to cities in Bangladesh. Conventional approaches to Urban Design and its impact on the environment and non-renewable energy resources. Concepts of Sustainability, Green Design and Energy Conscious Design. Thermal comfort outdoors; its perception and use as urban design criteria. Effects of urban form and geometry, built density and land use, open spaces and streets and urban greens on micro climates. Tools and techniques of urban environmental research, computer-based simulation techniques and models as prediction tools. Role of changing technologies in search of new directions for environment conscious urban design and architecture.
ARCH 6107 (3 Credits): Ecosystem and Built-Environment Design
Theoretical Antecedents in Environmental design, Law of Interdependence, inseparable nature of environmental categories; Ecology and Ecosystem – Definition and Concepts, Community metabolism and biotic community concept, Ecology and its relationship with other branches of knowledge; Human community and the ecological crisis; Man and Environment; Geo-physical forces and built environment, Concepts and application in environmental design; Eco-settlement concepts, Passive means of built environment controls. Analysis and Synthesis of Indigenous built environments; Perception of environmental qualities- environmental evaluation and preferences, Lessons from the failures. Crisis in the built environment with case studies. Technological developments and their applications in environment-friendly buildings and settlements; Appropriate Technology for sustainable built environment design- Models, Materials and Methods; Safer Built Environment with reference to Third World Cities with Case-studies; Built Environment Design in the local context.
ARCH 6401 (3 Credits): Theories of Urban Design
Growth of human settlements and urban centers, generative and parasitic nature of urban growth, factors influencing growth. Definition, scope and relationship with Architecture and Planning. Dominant trends in Urban Design: Utopian, Monumentalist, Environmentalist, Modernist, Perceptionist, etc. Normative and Organic theories of urban form and design. Steps of urban design processes, approaches towards the problems and levels of analysis. Analysis of urban physical pattern. Physical and non-physical functioning of areas, community action and conflict management.
ARCH 6403 (3 Credits): Urban Morphology-I
Urban Morphology History; Spatial analysis of Urban Form; Theory of Space Syntax for configurational analysis of urban form. The spatial nature of societies; Theory of space in the structuring of society; Philosophical debate about space; Social logic of the spatial morphology of urban form. Form of Cities and how they function; Configuration of Urban Grid and Urban Core; Theory of movement economy; Problems in urban structure- Part and Whole, Disurbanism; order and structure in urban design. Spatial Morphology in cities- Medieval, Islamic, Colonial; Geometry in organic and Planned cities; Morphology of organic cities. Transformation of Urban Form with particular reference to change in activity pattern and sustainable urban form; Modernizing medieval cities, Urban Transformation and the morphological characters of Dhaka.
Group 2-Construction and Technology in Landscape Architecture
LA 6861 (3 Credits): Green Technologies in Landscape Architecture
The course encompasses the study and analysis of sustainable landscape design features and precedents; combating climate change through landscape-driven technologies, nature-based solutions, and embedding green environments within a built form and built environment.
LA 6863 (3 Credits): Construction Techniques in Landscape Architecture
This course explores commonly used construction and maintenance techniques and materials in landscape architecture. Students learn how to construct man-made landscape elements (patios, walks, fences, waterfalls, pools, and other outdoor features); how to operate and maintain equipment used in landscaping; Client liaison and drawings, site preparation, drainage, contours, surface preparations, materials evaluation, installation planning, time schedule, quality assurance, and quality control in landscape projects.
Group 3-Specialized Landscape Discourses
LA 6833 (3 Credits): Conservation of Landscapes (Natural and Cultural Landscapes)
Critical history and theory of Conservation of Landscape with primary focus on biodiversity; as well as geo-diversity elements as, critical system supports for biodiversity and ecosystem function; and features such as soils, rivers, mountains and caves etc.; cultural value of landscape for society. Assessments of landscapes, strategies and measures in the area of nature conservation for a range of cultural landscape types including historic sites and settlements, designed landscapes and vernacular landscapes; Interdisciplinary methods relevant to cultural landscape such as landscape representation, media, visual perception and reception of landscapes, interpretation narrative and participatory design.
LA 6873 (3 Credits): Therapeutic Landscapes
This course emphasizes Therapeutic Landscape design focusing on sustainable landscape design principles aimed at promoting people’s health and wellbeing in the built environment. The course focuses on healthy living in terms of everyday urban settings that promote physical activity, provide access to a healthy environment, offer restorative and therapeutic qualities, and encourage healthy social interaction and integration. The course emphasizes on collecting (or finding), analyzing, and interpreting reliable data sources and translating them into design principles that focus on evidence-based design solutions.
ARCH 6407 (3 Credits): Urban Foodscapes
Landscape for food production within the urban built environment; cultural and historical references to urban foodscapes within urban settlement; precedent studies on the urban foodscapes; placemaking through urban foodscapes; appropriate plant community, design tools and strategies for the urban foodscapes; urban foodscaping as a Nature-based Solution (NbS) in the era of climate change.
ARCH 6409 (3 Credits): Waterscapes
The relationship between human settlement and waterscapes; historical references; the ecosystems, natural processes, and climate-induced events within waterscapes; analysis and precedent studies of various natural and human-induced waterscapes in terms of their origin, processes, agencies, and spatial and experiential qualities; nature-based and landscape-systems-informed strategies for eco-sensitive waterscapes within human settlements.
Dhaka 1000, Bangladesh
+88-02-223365633
www.arch.buet.ac.bd
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