Ecologies, Techniques, Technologies I

This is the first course in the core sequence of Ecologies, Techniques and Technologies and is divided into two half-semester modules. The first module emphasizes the identification and understanding of prominent woody plants in New England spanning the continuum between exotic and endemic, rural and urban. Through a series of field trips and lectures, students will develop a sense of these plants\’ defining morphological characteristics as well as the cultural and ecological contexts within which each are associated. Students will be evaluated primarily through a weekly series of plant identification exercises.The second module seeks to translate the student\’s now functional understanding of plant material into one which accounts for said medium\’s crucial role in landscape design. Students will learn to exploit the ecological and aesthetic potential of plant material and situate this knowledge within broader conceptual strategies which will be developed both through in-class design exercises and in Core Studio. Lectures, readings and site visits will introduce students to planting typologies, notions of spatial organization and representational strategies, all of which will be used to inform individual design projects which constitute the means by which students will be evaluated.