University of Tennessee School of Landscape Architecture

Final Pin-Up

LAR 552: "Celluloid States"
Instructor(s): Andrew Madl & Gale Fulton

Celluloid States explores landscape architecture and cinema as parallel practices that construct meaning through time, material, and atmosphere. The studio treats film as a generative tool for design - translating cinematic elements such as color, light, narrative, and movement into design strategies for landform, planting, hydrology, and infrastructure.

Studio Final Review

LAR 554/556: "CounterLandscapes: Charleston"

Students situated themselves within the physical, cultural, and ecological fabric of Charleston, SC. Building from earlier research and ritual practices, students designed independent landscape interventions—gardens, learning, allées, framing devices, and constructed landforms—that prioritized spatial experience, repetition, and use over time. Scale and scope remained flexible, and operated through embodied encounter rather than abstract analysis. Ritual, attunement, and celebration functioned as design logics, shaping how spaces are inhabited, revisited, and cared for. Projects unfolded through ceremony, seasonal change, communal maintenance, and recurring gathering, translating research into shared, lived experience. This work is not didactic or problem-solving; instead, it emphasizes poetic, affective interventions that make land histories.

Final Review

LAR 554/556: "Harvesting Beauty...the Bond of Live Things"
Instructor(s): Sarah Bolivar

Building on play, wonder, and exploration, students designed strategies to re-stitch the Knoxville College campus with its surrounding neighborhood. In light of the College's uncertain future, students designed through an ethos of care and maintenance—reimagining histories, site conditions, and materials—to foreground both memory and communal futures. Many thanks again to Dasha Lundy for helping us to learn more about this special place.

Master of Landscape Project, Final Review

Congratulations to our graduate students who recently completed their MLP Final Review. These projects were curated testaments to topics our students have a great interest in, spending the entire year developing, researching, and designing, pushing new ideas forward. Congratulations again students.

Projects:

“Machine Ecologies”, by Hannah Bowman
“HYDROscape”, by Margaret Marando

2/3rds Review

Recently, our students participated in 2/3rds reviews for their current studio projects. Students presented their projects thus far to critics and received feedback on how to further develop their projects for the final reviews scheduled for next week.

// SoLA Travels //

Tennessee ASLA Conference - Memphis, TN

Last week, a group of MLA students traveled to Memphis, TN, to attend the Tennessee ASLA Conference. On the way to the conference, students stopped in Nashville, TN, and received a tour of Hawkins Partners Inc., where they learned more about AI in professional practice. Students also received a tour of the Neuhoff district within the Germantown neighborhood, looking at adaptive reuse of abandoned infrastructure.

In Memphis, TN, Students met professionals within the field of landscape architecture from across Tennessee, and attended various sessions offered by the conference. Students also had the privilege of meeting Torey Carter-Conneen, the CEO of the National ASLA, and gained the opportunity to learn more about the ASLA on a national level.

Thank you, TN ASLA, for the opportunity for our students to attend this conference. We look forward to seeing you all again next year.

SoLA Highlights

Last week at the Tennessee ASLA Conference, four MLA students were presented with various design awards for their studio projects by the Tennessee ASLA Chapter. Congratulations students on this recognition.

Merit Award, General Design Category
"Restitching Appalachia", Bryce Napier

Merit Award, General Design Category
"Territories of Return", Shadman Mahtab

Merit Award, Research Category
"HYDROscape", Margaret Marando

Honor Award, Communications Category
"Sown Heritage", Jack McCausland

Spring Recess is right around the corner, however our students are hard at work in Studio getting final ideas on paper and receiving feedback before 2/3rds Review next week.

Stay tuned for project updates from all our studios in the coming days.

Studio Pin-Up

LAR 552: “Celluloid States”
Instructor(s): Andrew Madl & Gale Fulton

First-year students in the “Celluloid States” studio have spent the past few weeks advancing their skills in parametric landscape design using Grasshopper, a Rhinoceros 3D plug-in. Students began by identifying textures, attitudes, and forms within their selected movies from earlier in the semester. Then, using Grasshopper, students constructed their own landscapes, prioritizing form, which will be applied to a real-world site along the Tennessee River in the next and final part of the studio. In conjunction with developing parametric forms, students produced 3D print models and contour models as a way of representing their topologies.