Postgraduate Landscape Architecture

MA Professional Landscape Architecture and Graduate Diploma in Landscape Architecture

MA Landscape Architecture Programmes in Landscape Architecture at the University of East London

uel.ac.uk/ace

“After successfully obtaining my Master’s in Professional Landscape Architecture from UEL with hopes of finding a job and working in London, I have achieved my goal. The programme was directed towards identifying and understanding the opportunities and constraints of urban development and sustainability of this extensive city. This allowed me to take part in this positive development.�

Robert Allan MA Professional Landscape Architecture student 2013.

Working in private practice in central London.

“The MA Landscape Architecture course at UEL is imaginative and rewarding. The one-to-one teaching encourages students to explore the diverse possibilities of landscape, both in theory and in practice. The support services are excellent and the location, at the heart of the School of Architecture, Computing and Engineering, allows collaboration with lots of other disciplines. I would thoroughly recommend it.�

Joanne Stevens MA Landscape Architecture student 2013.

Major Sites Manager for Physical Regeneration, London Borough of Newham.

Introduction

We are living in an increasingly urbanised and dynamic world, with over half the world’s population now living in cities. This creates an urgent need for design professionals to develop new approaches and skills that are on the one hand global, and on the other hand able to translate into very specific and local conditions. We require new tools to understand and respond to current realities, that are conceptual, theoretical, virtual, practical, material and hands-on.

Our programmes are predicated upon understanding the best of current local and international landscape practice, while emphasising the development of intuitive and analytical processes to test and develop new forms of landscape practice.

Students are welcomed as collaborators in programmes that seek to develop new strands to contemporary landscape architecture that are innovative in approach and include the temporal possibilities at the core of landscape. The programmes are designed to develop intellectual and practical professional tools for landscape architects. Through project-based studies new solutions are sought to the increasing complexity of our urban landscapes, where the social, political and economic, as well as spatial, pressures are most intense. Our staff and students, from all over the world, are encouraged to work nationally and internationally to explore a wide variety of interests, approaches and areas of research.

below: Perspective drawing by Andriani Plessa

The programmes aim to work in collaboration with local and international agencies on live projects where possible.

At the core of our teaching philosophy is the relationship developed between staff and students. Students are taught one to one, in small groups as well as in studios, workshops, seminars and lectures. Our project work follows a pattern of investigation, experiment and innovation.

As a student here you will benefit from the traditions in the School of making and the study of materials. To these skills you will add traditional and new approaches to representation and to advanced computing. Our School has links with a variety of practices where you will also gain valuable experience of working in the field.

This helps you to contextualise your learning with your profession in the future.

Our location in the growing and developing area of east London allows us to benefit from and contribute to the exciting cultural life of the capital. We aim to equip you with thinking processes and skills to enable you to thrive and flourish in the working and cultural contexts of your choice.

Programme focus •

We use live projects in the urban landscape of London so that you learn through the prism of site reality, and where the pressures on open space are most intense. Sites studies and places visited support this.

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The projects you undertake progress logically from concept through to construction, to provide the full range of skills required for professional life.

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You will develops your own ‘thesis’, working collaboratively with others, that echoes life in professional practice.

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We celebrate the School’s one-to-one material studies and a craft-based making approach to design, working within the studios, workshops and on site.

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We believe that theory and practice work form a virtuous circle, informing each other, and that our current investigations are strongest when underpinned through a critical understanding of the past. Example readings include William Gilpin’s An Essay on Prints, JB Jackson’s Concluding with Landscape, Stan Allen’s Mapping the Unmappable; Kevin Lynch’s The View from the Road, and the Landscape Consultants Appointment.

David Buck. Programme Leader in Landscape.

BSc Forestry, MA Landscape Design

MA Professional Landscape Architecture

MA Professional Landscape Architecture There are three 60-credit modules: two design studio and theory modules followed by a 10,000-word written and drawn thesis. This is a 12-month, full-time programme but can also be taken over 24 months part time.

Graduate Diploma in Landscape Architecture There are two 60-credit design studio and theory modules. This is a nine-month, full-time programme.

BOTH OF THESE PROGRAMMES HAVE FULL ACCREDITATION FROM THE LANDSCAPE INSTITUTE and provide a pathway to future membership for students who complete the Institute’s requirements.

Graduate Diploma Landscape Architecture

MA Landscape Architecture

below: site analysis Charlene Campbell left: sketch drawing Zoi Karaguni

MA Landscape Architecture There are three 60-credit modules: two design studio and theory modules followed by a 10,000-word written and drawn thesis. This is a 12-month, full-time programme but can also be taken over 24 months part time.

Teaching and assessment

These programmes will be taught on campus and a blend of teaching approaches will be used: •

lectures on core theory topics

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seminars, where you present your work

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studio work

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fieldwork and site visits devoted to aspects of landscape theories, context and practice

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regular presentations where you present your work to other students and to staff and invited guests in crits and pin-ups

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students are offered working places in the studio and are encouraged to make full use of the opportunity to study in the School.

You will receive a high level of contact time with staff as well as regular verbal and written feedback on your progress for each design project. clockwise from right: Landscape students presenting their work to invited critics; students at the end-of-year exhibition; landscape students during a visit to the eighteenth century Rousham Gardens near Oxford.

There is an annual exhibition where you can display your work to a wide invited audience.

Employability

Graduates from this programme are working in a wide variety of contexts. Some have worked for public sector organisations in the UK, some for environment charities, while others have worked for design practices in the UK, large international practices overseas, or have started their own design business.

Our studio staff are often practitioners of architecture, art and design and students regularly engage with practitioners at design reviews. Our students have an excellent track record of employment.

below: detailed planting plan Charlene Campbell

Entry requirements and how to apply

MA Professional Landscape Architecture: Applicants are required to have an honours degree with a minimum 2:2 classification accredited by the Landscape Institution from the UK, taught in English. Applicants will be assessed on the basis of achieved qualifications, portfolio and interview.

We accept a range of qualifications from across the world. Please refer to our website for information on country-specific entry requirements. It is important to note that as an international student you will need to meet both our academic and English language entry requirements to gain entry to our postgraduate courses.

Our English language requirements are an overall IELTS score of 6.5 with a minimum of 6.0 in Writing, Speaking, Reading and Listening (or recognised equivalent).

For more information and to apply for this programme please visit our website uel.ac.uk/study/postgrad Graduate Diploma Landscape Architecture: Applicants are required to have an honours degree with a minimum 2:2 classification from the UK, taught in English. You will be assessed on the basis of achieved qualifications, portfolio and interview.

We accept a range of qualifications from across the world. Please refer to our website for information on country-specific entry requirements. It is important to note that as an international student you will need to meet both our academic and English language entry requirements to gain entry to our postgraduate courses.

Our English language requirements are an overall IELTS score of 6.5 with a minimum of 6.0 in Writing, Speaking, Reading and Listening (or recognised equivalent).

For more information and to apply for this programme please visit our website uel.ac.uk/study/postgrad

Entry requirements and how to apply

MA Landscape Architecture: Applicants are required to have an honours degree with a minimum 2:2 classification from the UK, taught in English. Applicants will be assessed on the basis of achieved qualifications, portfolio and interview.

We accept a range of qualifications from across the world. Please refer to our website for information on country-specific entry requirements. It is important to note that as an international student you will need to meet both our academic and English language entry requirements to gain entry to our postgraduate courses.

Our English language requirements are an overall IELTS score of 6.5 with a minimum of 6.0 in Writing, Speaking, Reading and Listening (or recognised equivalent).

For more information and to apply for this programme please visit our website uel.ac.uk/study/postgrad

Visit us

Our open days are a great opportunity for you to get a real feel for what it will be like to study in the School of Architecture, Computing and Engineering (ACE). Events take place throughout the year, usually in September, October, January and June.

During your visit you’ll have the opportunity to: •

discuss your programme with our academics

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get advice about tuition fees and applying for funding

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tour our teaching facilities and student accommodation

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chat with current students to find out what life in ACE is like

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get started with the application process.

You can find our schedule of events and book online at uel.ac.uk/openday If you are an international student living overseas, look out for dates when we may be visiting your country – you can check at uel.ac.uk/international

“My search for a definition has led me back to that old Anglo-Saxon meaning: landscape is not scenery, it is not a political unit; it is really no more than a collection, a system of man-made spaces on the surface of the earth. Whatever its shape or size it is never simply a natural space, a feature of the natural environment; it is always artificial, always synthetic, always subject to sudden or unpredictable change. We create them and need them because every landscape is the place where we establish our own human organisation of space and time.�

John Brinckerhoff Jackson, in Discovering the Vernacular Landscape (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1984)

Landscape architecture programmes are taught at the Docklands campus, adjacent to City Airport and with fast links to central london.

Contact us School of Architecture, Computing and Engineering University of East London Docklands Campus 4–6 University Way London E16 2RD Tel: 020 8223 2041 Email: ace@uel.ac.uk uel.ac.uk/ace

Š University of East London, March 2014

uel.ac.uk/ace/architecture