LA 4080

After Design

Course Description

Course information provided by the 2026-2027 Catalog.

Landscape maintenance and management are critical but often overlooked and undervalued aspects of design. Increasingly, calls for more attention to and funding for ongoing landscape maintenance and management of designed projects are gaining the attention of policy and lawmakers, public and private clients, planners and city managers. This course engages students in the theory of landscape management and covers topics such as maintenance as care and repair; managing green infrastructure and nature-based solutions; understanding the scale and rhythm of disturbance regimes to design for management such as fire, flood, mowing and grazing: managing urban and rural forests using succession, cutting and thinning; invasive species ecology and tools for limiting impacts; meadow and forest establishment; and managing for short and long-term climate change and desired performance.

Distribution Requirements (EEE-AG, SCH-AG)

Exploratory Studies (CU-SBY)

Last 4 Terms Offered (None)

Learning Outcomes

• Read and critically assess a number of papers about the theory and practice maintenance and management across disciplines of science, forestry, land management, public and urban open space, water management, architecture, and landscape architecture to synthesize into a collective ‘theory of maintenance’.
• Reflect on the week’s topic (including readings, lectures, panel discussions, etc.) with weekly writings.
• Review and critically assess a number of built works and sites that use maintenance and management as essential design tools.
• Engage with a cross-disciplinary group of guest speakers, peers and your instructor to understand various goals, strategies and outcomes for landscape management.
• Develop and conduct fieldwork on potential management sites to gather data related to project and represent findings as a map and/or drawing.
• Create a management plan for chosen site that includes ways of thinking about management and maintenance as compelling and valuable tools for design.
• Systems thinking – ability to identify patterns and make connections across fields or disciplines to evaluate sustainability problems and solutions.

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