University of Minnesota Department of Landscape Architecture

Join us this Thursday for the closing night of Assistant Professor Jessica Rossi-Mastracci’s exhibition, “Resilient Infrastructures: Land-Based Interventions for Climate Change Adaptation,” at Rapson Hall.

Jessica’s research investigates new ways of adapting to unknown future conditions in extreme landscapes, with a focus on infrastructure, materiality, and ephemerality, to speculate on design responses to climate change and urban landscape infrastructural systems.

🗓 Closing remarks on Thursday, October 24th
4:00-5:00 pm - Public viewing of the exhibition (note that the library closes at 5:00 pm)
5:00-6:00 pm - Light refreshments and conversation/Q+A in Rapson 225
📍 Rapson Hall 225, University of Minnesota

Calm. Immersive. Exploratory. Reflective. Inquisitive. Enlightening. These are words our students chose to describe the first workshop of their MLA program that took place last August.

The workshop is held annually at the Itasca Biological Research Station, one of the oldest continuously operational field stations in the United States of America, and the headwaters of the Mississippi River.

Three ecosystems converge at Itasca: coniferous forest, eastern deciduous forest and tall grass prairie. Students hiked, paddled, sketched, collaged and discussed the values they each bring to landscape architecture.

Our MLA builds upon our students’ knowledge and experiences to prepare them for careers as engaged designers ready to tackle the complex challenges facing urban, suburban, and rural communities including climate change, social justice, and water quality.

If you’re considering the MLA program you can sign up for an information session in our bio.

Congratulations 2024

Thanks to Jean Garbarini for sharing her experiences as lead designer for Water Works Park.

BLA 3rd year studio presentations recently for Waterworks Phase 2, taught by Andrew Montgomery, Adjunct Assistant Professor from Damon Farber. Thanks to Sabrina N. For the images.

History of Landscape Architecture field trip. Garden originally designed by Masami Matsuda.

Lecture by Michael Grove of Sasaki, Monday 09.25.33 @ 5:30p, UMN Rapson Hall Auditorium (Room 100)

Michael Grove, FASLA, PLA, is the Chair of Landscape Architecture, Civil Engineering, and Ecology and sits on Sasaki’s Board of Directors. Leading much of the firm’s international work, he offers unique insight into the environmental and social impacts of urbanization around the world.

https://events.tc.umn.edu/design/event/11923-architecture-lecture-seriesfrom-drawing-to

Check out our new gallery of student work on our College of Design website! We are currently featuring the capstone work from our MLA Class of 2021. Pictured here is an image from Tyler Smith's project, Lost on Cypress; Atlanta, Georgia. Tyler's goal was to foster an understanding of how historically q***r approaches to space-especially through looking at typologies of cruising grounds, bars, and bathhouses—can really be understood as radical reorganizational strategies with regards to public space. Check out more here (and link in bio!):https://design.umn.edu/academics/programs/landscape-architecture/landscape-architecture-student-work

Congratulations to our Class of 2022 MLA graduate, Michael Talerico! Michael's capstone project, A New Zoo Paradigm, redesigns the macaque exhibit at the Minnesota Zoo. This redesign provides an opportunity to reconsider the paradigm concept of a zoo. Instead of allocating resources to display exotic animals in geographic regions that are inconsistent with their own, "A New Zoo Paradigm" focuses on connecting people to their own bioregion. This fosters a stronger empathetic connection with the landscape and initiates responsibility for protecting the natural world.

We are incredibly of Michael's amazing project!

Congratulations to our Class of 2022 MLA graduate, Aubrey Olson! Aubrey's capstone project, In All the Places, explored the magic in the quotidian and seemingly mundane spaces of Northeast Minneapolis. Inspired by Victorian floriography, or the emotional "language of flowers," Aubrey approached sites with emotion and an understanding of site changes across hundreds of years. We are incredibly of Aubrey's amazing project!

Congratulations to our Class of 2022 MLA graduate, Preston McMahon! Preston's capstone project, An Immersive Story of Coral Reefs
Human Connections & Emotions- A VR Project, was inspired by childlike dreams of the ocean and their destruction via the realities of human development. Preston used VR to connect users to a virtual story for restoring our coral reefs and planet. We are incredibly of Preston's amazing project!

Happy Earth Day!

Department of Landscape Architecture Assistant Professor Jessica Rossi-Matracci, in partnership with Adam Marcus, is hosting a workshop called Earthen Tectonics as part of The School of Architecture's annual, week-long lecture and workshop series, Catalyst.

This workshop melds digital and analog modes of fabrication, exploring the potential for custom CNC-molded modular systems, experimenting with material processes, and designing for water.
The material research, partially pictured here, focuses on experimentation with a traditional rammed-earth construction process, exploring variations in material consistency, composition, mixture, and packing techniques.

Today we are featuring MLA student Torey Erin's project called Erro Time Garden, a garden designed for downtown Minneapolis in the current parking lot of Marquette and 3rd Avenue.

The Erro Time Garden is a mystical phenomenological enclosed garden that encourages visitors to engage in anthropomorphic qualities of the trees planted such as Weeping Norway Spruce, Willow, and Eastern Hemlock among others. It includes a Wisteria vine roofed structure, healing medicinal plants, deep reflection pool and large basalt stones that have small lights installed inside of them to resemble fireflies.

Register by March 14th for the first Roger Martin Travel Prize for emerging landscape architects.

From questions of communication and spatial quality to those of carbon sequestration and human-non-human relations, these invited speakers have been exploring a great range of questions about forests and our relationships with them. We hope you will join this online symposium where they will be sharing a few of these recent "Arboreal Inquiries.” Register today at https://www.gldl.org!

2022 WxLA SCHOLARSHIPS - CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
3 SCHOLARSHIPS! $3,000 EACH!

WxLA-MN is offering 3 scholarships this year, one winner will be selected for each scholarship. Winners will be awarded $3,000 each and recognized before professional peers at the ASLA–MN Annual Award Banquet on April 15th, 2022.

ENTRY DEADLINE: SUNDAY, MARCH 13, 2022 (11:59pm)

Visit for more information.

Please contact Grace Chryssomallis, Rebecca Krinke, and Nikki Schlepp at [email protected] with questions.