Master of Landscape Architecture

Daniels offers two options in the Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA): a first professional degree and a post-professional degree.

The professional Master of Landscape Architecture degree, for students new to the discipline, uses intensive studio-based courses to address the design challenges facing urban landscapes today. Complementary lecture and seminar courses in history, theory, technology, and environmental studies provide comprehensive professional training and serve as a forum to examine landscape architecture’s synthetic role in design and planning at scales ranging from the garden to the region. After a four-term core curriculum, students develop independent research directions that culminate in the final term’s thesis studio. The program’s goal is to develop progressive models for landscape architecture practice: we encourage work that explores and extends the discipline’s ties to the humanities, environmental and social sciences, and engineering.

The post-professional Master of Landscape Architecture program is an intensive eight-month course of advanced study for candidates already holding a professional degree in landscape architecture. Geared toward leadership, the post-professional program seeks applicants from diverse contexts. Some students join us immediately after completing an undergraduate degree in landscape architecture; others come after many years in practice or policy work to renew and broaden their academic understanding of the discipline and the profession. Drawing on expert faculty advisors and on courses from across Daniels and the university, students develop individual programs of independent research in one of three areas: landscape design in the context of contemporary urbanism; landscape design in the context of regional ecology; and landscape design in the context of digital media. This work culminates in the final term’s thesis studio.

Within the Daniels Faculty, the MLA program draws on resources from our masters’ degree programs in architecture and urban design and from our internationally recognized Centre for Landscape Research (CLR); at the University of Toronto, students can pursue interests in a wide range of related fields. Beyond that, the program is enhanced by lectures and visits from renowned scholars and practitioners of landscape architecture. In the last five years, visiting professors, lecturers and critics have included Alan Berger, Claude Cormier, James Corner, Julia Czerniak, Christophe Girot, Kristina Hill, Nina-Marie Lister, Chris Reed, Dirk Sijmons, Kongjian Yu, and many others.

Jane Wolff
Program Director
jane.wolff@daniels.utoronto.ca