MLA design thesis: experimental research in landscape architecture

The design thesis studio of the Master of Landscape Architecture puts into practice all the skills and knowledge that the students have acquired over the course of two years, and it is a testament to the innovation, creativity, ethical awareness and commitment to ecological, social and climate issues that students develop over time. In our MLA studio learning we focus on a series of principles that envisage landscape planning, design and management as a conduit for planetary health and well-being: from design as life-centred, more than human and multisensorial, to design as a subtle and slow process of finding, revealing and rearranging.  These principles build on one another and are threaded by art and ecology which are intertwined in the practice of Landscape Architecture.

In our design thesis studio, we focus on landscape design as research and experimentation and on design as a valid form of research enquiry.   The studio is student-led and students select their own issues and sites. Some of the projects submitted in this entry are highly experimental interventions that respond to environmental conditions and allow existing and new habitats to develop in time.  Others are subtle yet effective interventions that have resulted from an active engagement with specific community needs, from a personal attachment to place or from in-depth research into lost cultural and historical layers of a place.