Key Figures
LDEM houses the Bachelor of Landscape Architecture (BLA) program, which is fully registered at NYSED, and received accreditation in 2021 making it the first accredited program by the Landscape Architectural Accreditation Board (LAAB) from the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) outside the USA. The program has several distinct features that differentiate it from programs in the MENA region as well as other academic landscape architecture programs. The BLA offers a US modelled program and culminates in a professional degree. The BLA covers teaching and research that highlight issues of sustainability and resilience across arid and semi-arid climates, further distinguishing the program on a regional scale.
Another hallmark of the BLA program is the intentional integration of landscape architecture and design with knowledge of ecological and ecosystem science. The program is developed as a multi-disciplinary model of landscape architecture teaching that culminates in a two-semester capstone project, distinguishing it as a landscape architecture program from many others.
The curriculum comprises a total of 144-credit hours over four years, including summers. The BLA challenges students to become creative and responsible designers who develop sustainable and innovative site-relevant responses (natural, rural, and urban) to critical issues and who generate knowledge to address great challenges of our time.
The program values and promotes civic engagement of students and faculty within and without its context and through coursework, field trips, experimental learning, and internships and helps prepare its graduates for the various career tracks of the profession.
BLA Program Learning Outcomes
Landscape Architecture students will graduate with a solid foundation in design and scientific knowledge so as to:
PLO 1: Integrate regional concerns (environmental, cultural, social, and economic) into landscape architecture projects.
PLO2: Formulate a basic understanding of professional practice processes.
PLO3: Integrate ethical values in professional design and practice .
PLO4: Communicate ideas and concepts of landscape architecture orally, textually, and graphically.
PLO5: Develop the sequence of the design process.
PLO6: Integrate ecosystems as a component of sustainable landscapes in Mediterranean semi-arid and arid contexts.
PLO7: Develop a design process
that promotes relationships between the different elements of Landscape
Architecture.
PLO8: Integrate design, science,
and engineering in landscape design, planning, and management.
PLO9: Develop hands-on and experiential learning skills.
PLO10: Integrate principles of landscape architectural history, theory, science, and research.
PLO11: Integrate technology and innovation into thinking processes and applications.