Research Methods in Landscape Architecture

This seminar offers an overview of various types and practices of research methodology in contemporary landscape architecture. Central to the ambitions of the course is the belief that landscape architecture has cultivated a series of research modalities that are simultaneously unique to the discipline and at the same time reflective of universal issues in social science and environmental science-based research. Consequently, the course positions contemporary practices in the broader context of historical evolutions and epistemological questions. Practices to be explored include displacement and re-presentation; occupation; observation; social survey; crowd-sourcing; inventory; morphological measurement and additional qualitative and quantitative methods.

The seminar invites students from across the GSD to participate in this course, regardless of program association. MLA students, whether thesis students or otherwise, will find the course particularly relevant to their work. Each participant in the course is expected to complete readings, participate in discussions, and complete a fully considered research proposal with particular attention given to the methodological approaches and analytical goals the participant seeks to accomplish during the course of their degree completion. The research proposal will involve the production of verbal, visual, and textual components.