In the course of exploring the constructed landscape, students will learn to transform experiences and observances, at site and city scales, into visual modes of representation. A series of weekly exercise, relating to the lecture of the previous week, will give members of the course an opportunity to practice the techniques and cultivate relationships between observing, conceptualizing, constructing and communicating. Through the use of landscape architectural design conventions of plan, section, elevation, axonometric and perspective, and through sketching, drafting, diagramming and mapping, students will apply a variety of physical and digital media techniques to effectively communicate their design ideas though visual means. Emphasis will be placed on rigorously considered integration of the design concept, its visual representation, and an effort at exceeding the boundaries of contemporary design communication.

Each student will be given a built work of landscape architecture in the city which will form the basis for their studies over the course of the term. Taken individually each site will present different challenges of scale, program, adjacency, design intent, formal language, and use of plant material among others. Studied collectively the sites will make evident the power of landscape architectural drawings to accommodate difference while remaining legible as shared visual language. At the end of the semester each student will produce a booklet summarizing the weekly exercise completed during the semester.