Teaching Rationale: MLA Design Thesis at the University of Hong Kong

Abstract

China faces massive environmental and societal challenges, and Landscape Architecture has a vital role to play in helping the community to overcome these. Landscape architects need to be able to engage, understand and analyze authoritatively in topical discourses on environmental, cultural and social issues, and to be able to present rational arguments for meaningful action. This expanding sphere of influence requires that the teaching of landscape architecture reach beyond technical knowledge of landscapes and skills in the manipulation of its forms, materials and technologies, and address the issue of rationale. It needs to give students the intellectual rigor and theoretical framework for their future professional practice and, more broadly, to expand the discipline. After twenty years of Landscape Architecture education at HKU, we have some thoughts regarding the process and value of a design thesis in this regard. Design Thesis should require students to articulate a critical position within the discipline of Landscape Architecture and test the proposition through a design process. The ultimate goal of the thesis process should be to advance the knowledge, methods, and practices of landscape architecture and to prepare students to enter the world of practice and participate actively as future leaders of the discipline, with the capacity for critical self-reflection, innovation, and strong convictions regarding the social, economic, and environmental sustainability of the built environment. This paper presents the approach, and some of the outcomes, of our Master of Landscape Architecture Design Thesis course.

Keywords

Landscape Design Thesis / Graduate Landscape Education / Landscape Architecture / Rationale for Design / Research in the Expanded Field

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

2014 Higher Education Press