Architecture Planning & Environmental Policy - Landscape Architecture
MLArch Landscape Architecture
Graduate Taught (level 9 nfq, credits 120)
UCD offers Ireland's only advanced professional degree programme in Landscape Architecture. The MLA is a critical design-based programme that prepares students for juggling with the types of complex issues that affect Irish towns, cities and countryside in the Anthropocene. In Ireland, and elsewhere, questions of climate change, sea level rise, flooding, biodiversity and habitat loss meet weak planning, polluting practices, sprawl and a lack of political will.
Our real-world, site-based approach seeks to decipher the cultural, ecological, spatial and environmental conditions and processes that are present in the modern landscape. Lessons learnt from Irish case studies can be applied elsewhere in the world and we seek to equip graduates with the skills required to contribute an essentially multidisciplinary approach to the design of healthier, greener, more sustainable communities, as well as the policies that underpin them.
Course Description
• UCD's 2-year Masters programme in Landscape Architecture is the only professionally recognized course in Ireland.
• Recognised by IFLA Europe (the international body for landscape architecture), the programme is a final academic step in the path that leads towards professional status. It builds on the learning taught in 3 or 4 year undergraduate degree programmes in landscape architecture.
• Taught by specialists from departments across the university, this programme takes a truly multi-disciplinary approach to the landscape.
• Landscape architecture is one of the professions that is becoming crucial in mediating against the effects of climate change and ensuring quality of life. UCD's multidisciplinary approach prepares graduates for the complexities of professional practice in a changing world.
• Delivered by an Architecture School ranked in the top 100 in Europe by Domus.
Vision & Value Statement
At the interface between the human and the natural world, our approach marries spatial design skills with an understanding of nature-led solutions, engineering, urban and rural planning, natural and social sciences and the humanities. We place emphasis on understanding, interpreting and designing inhabited landscapes, and study the Irish landscape in particular. This is an advanced programme in which students are encouraged to identify issues present in contemporary Irish society, and address them through design. Our programme focuses on designing with nature in a context that pushes typical urban analytical and project boundaries outwards from the city. Embedded in the real-world, our studio sites are large and include coasts and rivers, hills and valleys, farmlands and woodlands as well as towns and villages. We review traditional planning and engineering approaches critically and explore alternatives, seeking better, more beautiful, more sustainable solutions that work with nature to the benefit of all.
Programme Outcomes
Graduates of this programme are critical thinkers, interdisciplinary debaters and skilled in graphic and written communications. Graduates have developed research skills, are able to think and work independently and are used to functioning as part of a team. Each graduate has developed a personal set of skills and competencies that enables them to work within the broad domain of landscape architecture, as a strong member of a multidisciplinary team.
Subjects taught
Stage 1 - Option
Soil Resources AESC20070
Diversity in the Rural Landscape AESC30110
Wildlife Conservation AESC40150
Habitat Evaluation AESC40190
Urban Design Theory (UDT) ARCT40180
Introduction to Urban Design ARCT40660
Diversity of Plant Form & Function BOTN30050
Rivers, Estuaries and Coasts GEOG20040
River Catchment Management GEOG30370
Environmental Assessment GEOG30860
Reimagining Dublin: An Interdisciplinary Exploration in Urban Regeneration GEOG40750
GIS for Environmental Assessment GEOG40770
Landscape Trees and Shrubs HORT30050
Landscape Studio 4 BLARC40360
Landscape Studio 4 ALARC40390
Landscape Research 1 LARC40420
Landscape Studies: Major Essay LARC40430
Landscape Architectural Thesis LARC40450
Rural and Landscape Planning LARC40540
Building Biodiversity: nature as Builder LARC40550
Planning Law APEPLAW41660
Rural & Landscape Planning PLAN40040
Governing Nature PLAN40230
Entry requirements
Entry Requirements
• An honours undergraduate degree (NFQ level 8) with a minimum upper second class honours or international equivalent in landscape architecture, architecture or environmental design. Portfolio submission is required.
• Graduates of certain cognate disciplines such as planning, geography, environmental studies with minimum 2:1 award (UCD GPA 3.08 or above) or international equivalence should consider the MLA pathway or Master of Landscape Studies (T296)
• Portfolio submission is required
• Applicants whose first language is not English must also demonstrate English language proficiency of IELTS 6.5 (no band less than 6.0 in each element), or equivalent.
• Applicants who do not meet the entry requirements should refer to the MLA Pathway.
• These are the minimum entry requirements – additional criteria may be requested for some programmes.
Application dates
The following entry routes are available:
Master Landscape Architecture FT (X051)
Deadline: Rolling *
* Courses will remain open until such time as all places have been filled, therefore early application is advised.
Credits
120
Duration
2 years full-time.
Fees
MLArch Landscape Architecture (X051) Full Time
EU Year 1 - € 8085
EU Year 2 - € 8085 aa
nonEU Year 1 - € 25600
nonEU Year 2 - € 25600 aa
aaSecond Year Fee applies to Students in 2nd Year in 2020 and who were a 1st Year Student on the programme in 2019/20
***Fees are subject to change
Please note that UCD offers a number of graduate scholarships for full-time, self-funding international students, holding an offer of a place on a UCD graduate degree programme. For further information please see http://www.ucd.ie/global/study-at-ucd/scholarshipsfinances/scholarships/.
The College of Engineering & Architecture also offer scholarships for non-EU students, for more information see: www.ucd.ie/eacollege/study/noneuscholarships.
Enrolment dates
Next Intake: 2020/2021 September
Post Course Info
Career & Graduate Study Opportunity
UCD graduates have gone on to practice in a professional capacity in many countries of the world, employed by landscape or multidisciplinary practices, by NGO's and by governmental organisations in design, managerial and policy roles.
Related Programmes
• Master of Architecture
• MRUP FT
• MSc Environmental Policy FT
• MSc Urban Design & Planning FT