Our approach is interdisciplinary, involving ideas and skills from the sciences, arts, and humanities. We have a studio fit for any designer. Our students, faculty, and alumni are active within the landscape architecture profession. We celebrate the successes of our students. We help you make the career moves you need to succeed.
Our Approach to Learning
The faculty are trained in landscape architecture, botany, ecology, landscape ecology, geography, environmental studies, and folklore. We conduct research in restoring and preserving natural communities and ecosystems; creating urban environments that support human health and well-being and ecosystem services; working with diverse rural and urban communities to document, understand, protect, and conserve cultural and historic landscapes and local food systems; and developing regional conservation strategies using geospatial analysis.
Our students come to us with diverse interests and skills ranging from art and design to plants and people, and leave with groundings in each. While they are here, students have opportunities to participate in faculty research and to collaborate within design studios to solve real-world problems for underserved communities in urban and rural settings in Wisconsin, as well as in Costa Rica and Puerto Rico.
We prepare students to enter the profession and become licensed landscape architects through our undergraduate professional degree program, the BLA. For students interested in planning, cultural resource conservation or restoration ecology, we offer an alternative Landscape and Urban Studies degree. Our MSLA graduate program is a research-based or a project-based master’s degree, of which students can choose to specialize in Restoration Ecology or in Community-Focused Design.
Our Studio Space
In our studio at Agricultural Hall, we house work spaces for the Sophomores, Juniors, Seniors, and graduate students. Each undergraduate student receives their individual drafting table and storage. This studio also holds two computer labs with the latest software, with one including VR capabilities. Several faculty and graduate assistant offices are also in this studio.
We also have studio space in Agricultural Bulletin, where students often take their prerequisite landscape architecture courses.
An Active Student Chapter
Within the Landscape Architecture Program is the Wisconsin-American Society of Landscape Architects Student Chapter. The WI-ASLA Student Chapter attends conferences, holds professional workshops, brings in guest speakers from design and consulting firms, and organizes many social gatherings to share internship experiences and to meet fellow landscape architecture students.
The Jensen-Logenecker Awards Banquet
PLA hosts an awards and honors program held every year in the Spring Semester to recognize:
- ASLA Awards of Honor and Merit
- Outstanding Publication Award
- Outstanding Public Service Award
- Outstanding Departmental Service Award
- and others
This banquet is named after Jens Jensen and G. William Logenecker, two landscape architects who have had a lasting impact on Wisconsin and UW.
The Annual Department Career Fair
PLA organizes a career fair every spring semester. Interdisciplinary firms and many alumni come from all over to offer students the opportunity to display their work and interview with potential employers. Many of our students obtain internships for the summer from this career fair.
Internships and permanent positions are posted digitally and physically. The Department of Planning and Landscape Architecture also has an active job board that is regularly updated.