Director's Message

The fields of architecture, landscape architecture, city and regional planning, and construction science evolved from a common foundation, but these fields have been characterized by increasing divergence in recent years. Early academic programs were pre-professional and professional degree programs and evolved together through schools of architecture or architectural engineering. Traditionally, architecture and its allied professions have been based on "intuitive and experiential" learning with a major part of educational programs devoted to studio experiences (Schneider 1996). Doctoral education developed separately within these individual fields.

The field of city and regional planning drifted from its early design tradition to more of a social science focus during the mid-Twentieth Century. This reorientation of planning programs led to an expansion of Ph.D. programs that followed a social science model based on interpretive inquiry. With philosophical roots tied both to design and ecology, the field of landscape architecture has been slower to develop its own doctoral identity with only three doctoral programs in North America at this time. Still, the connection between academic planning and the built environment has been frayed, and many within the field argue that the fields of architecture, landscape architecture, planning, and construction science must come together to find common ground.

The goal of our program is to provide a holistic education drawing in an interdisciplinary fashion from the fields of architecture, landscape architecture, city and regional planning, and construction science. Each of these fields has gained strength as they separated themselves to establish their own unique identities. Collectively, they provide a unique body of knowledge for addressing issues related to the built environment. Coursework will provide sufficient depth of coverage to allow graduates to compete for academic positions in individual subject areas as well as the diversity to integrate content from related fields in a way that a single disciplinary base would not allow. While offered with theoretical and methodological underpinnings, the program relates to contemporary and emerging issues of the built environment, connecting students to real world applications.

We encourage your thorough review of our program on the web site. If you have any questions about our program and how it meets your academic needs or want to discuss your planning future, please contact the main office at (864) 656-3926.