Department of Planning and Landscape Architecture

The Department of Planning and Landscape Architecture is the most interdisciplinary department in the College of Architecture, Arts and Humanities. A Bachelor of Landscape Architecture (BLA), Master of City and Regional Planning (MCRP), a Master of Science in Historic Preservation (MSHP), and a Master of Real Estate Development (MRED) are currently housed in the department. In fall 2005 two additional degrees—Ph.D. in Environmental Design and Planning (EDP) and Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA) will be added. In total those programs allow the department to engage in a full spectrum of land and community management, planning, and design studies.

Many parts of the world are changing at a rapid pace. Given those changes the department is committed to the protection of environmental and cultural resources, while planning for inevitable growth and change. The goal of the MCRP is to educate students in the means of providing for the “welfare of people and their communities by creating convenient, equitable, healthful, efficient, and attractive environments for present and future generations.”

Landscape architecture students in the BLA and the MLA learn physical analysis, planning, design, management, and stewardship strategies and the means to apply that knowledge to the natural and built environments through direct intervention. The programs offer hands-on experience with real world projects of local, national, and international significance.

The MSHP degree is a professional degree program in Historic Preservation designed for students who will specialize in working with historic buildings, landscapes and the decorative arts. The program is based in Charleston and is taught as a joint program with the College of Charleston. The program uses Charleston and the historic environs of South Carolina as a living laboratory.

Future developers will need to balance a numerous perspective in order to work in an increasingly complex world. The MRED, through a Department of Planning and Landscape Architecture and Department of Finance partnership, prepares future development professionals to understand the benefit of integrating community, environmental and economic values through public-private partnerships. The goal is intelligent development appropriate fitted to place.

Finally the Ph.D. in Environmental Design and Planning will bring an in-depth and scholarly research focus to all of the disciplines in the department as well as architecture and construction science management. Students will choose an area of focused study and write a dissertation.

That rich array of programs has inspired the department to embrace a philosophy of “critical regionalism,” the idea that while change is inevitably influenced by global factors; design, planning, and management should clearly be linked to the integrity of place. Place-based studies will occur in numerous places through state and national associations and through international exchange programs located in Genoa, Barcelona, and Istanbul. Centers affiliated with the department—the Center for Community Growth and Change, the Center for Real Estate Development, the Design Arts Partnership, and the Charleston Project—help in facilitating research and class projects that are grounded in the uniqueness of place.