LK0465, Landscape planning in theory and practice, 15.0 Hp
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Syllabus

Finalized by: Ordförande PN-LT, 2024-11-12
Valid from : Autumn semester 2025 (2025-09-01)

Level

Second cycle (A1F)

Main field of study

Landscape Architecture

Grading Scale

The grade requirements within the course grading system are set out in specific criteria. These criteria must be available by the course start at the latest.

Course language

English

Entry Requirements

Objectives

The purpose of this advanced course is for the student to gain deeper understanding of landscape planning.

Knowledge and understanding

After completion of this course the student shall be able to:

• define and describe different ideas on key concepts within landscape planning, such as landscape, nature, space, place, and how these differences affect planning practice.
• communicate an understanding of the wide fields of landscape and planning theory.
• reflect on and discuss a selection of contemporary issues that shape the social and environmental context of planning theories and practices.
• explain the role of cartography for how landscape planning has been and is practiced today, and strategies for moving beyond or enriching this dominant perspective.

Competence and skills

After completion of this course the student shall be able to:

• apply the conceptual framework offered in the course for a critical examination of a landscape planning project.
• apply academic writing.

Judgement and approach

After completion of this course the student shall be able to:

• reflect upon the rhetorical use of concepts and theories within the field of landscape planning, and its consequences for the practice.
• reflect upon the needs for a sustainability shift within planning and what it requires in terms of new or revised theories within landscape planning.

Content

Subject-related content

Even the most pragmatic landscape planner uses concepts and theories as a base for his/her practice – even though not necessarily in a conscious manner. This course argues that improved capacity to analyze and question ideas taken for granted on landscape and planning (be it one’s own or others theories) will improve how landscape planning is practiced.

The course uses landscape theory as a lens to critique and gain deeper understanding of planning, especially landscape planning. It discusses theories, key concepts and methods in landscape planning, with examples of how it is practiced. Contemporary practice as well as historical examples are used to reveal several possible ways of understanding key concepts within the field (such as landscape, nature, space and place), which in turn affects how landscape planning is understood and practiced. These concepts are particularly contextualised in relation to contemporary social and environmental issues. This course captures how theories on landscape can limit, or facilitate, certain planning solutions. The analysis of contemporary practice also opens up for a discussion on what landscape planning is and could be.

While the course focuses on landscape planning, its theoretical and methodological discussions have a wider reach. The course provides knowledge on how to critically examine theories, concepts and representations within landscape architecture and planning. Such examinations, we argue, is a base for an active and conscious planning.

Teaching formats

To further student learning and promote discussion, a variety of methods are used, such as:

The course is based on literature seminars combined with lectures and workshops. It ends with writing a paper in which one of the theories or concepts discussed in the course is studied in more detail. This paper offers a possibility to start to think and work on a theoretical frame for the following master thesis.

The course includes seminars on the ideas of landscape in landscape planning, the role of cartography and other visual representations in planning, the role of ideas of nature for how landscape planning has been practiced, landscape in relation to planning theory, and a seminar on an up-to date discourse within planning. Seminars, exercises, and activities connected to them are compulsory.

The course focuses on the following generic skills:

Academic reading, writing, discussion, and presentation

Collaboration with the surrounding community takes place through:

Excursions

Examination Formats and Requirements for Passing the Course

Passed participation in seminars, lectures and workshops. Passed individual presentations of a text at a seminar, passed written summary of the literature and the discussions for some of the seminars, and passed final paper as well as passed compulsory activities.

Responsible Department/Equivalent

Department of Urban and Rural Development

Supplementary information

Included in program

• Landskapsarkitektprogrammet, Ultuna
• Landskapsarkitektprogrammet - Uppsala
• Landscape Architecture for Sustainable Urbanisation - Master's Programme

The Course Replaces

LK0345