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Master of Landscape Architecture
Master of Landscape Architecture
The Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA) at CU Denver is a STEM-designated and fully accredited degree program for first-professional degree students and post-professional students (those already holding a Bachelor of Landscape Architecture or Bachelor of Architecture degree). Our program balances theory and practice, emphasizing design to support human well-being and environmental balance.
Program Information
The MLA program thoughtfully integrates theory and practice and revolves around a sequence of design studios supported by core content classes and seminar courses on a variety of relevant topics. Our curriculum is designed to provide students with the fundamental knowledge, skills, and critical and creative thinking necessary to succeed as landscape architects while also offering opportunities to focus on particular areas of interest. The curriculum promotes an ethic of responsibility, grounded in natural systems and processes, and an understanding of cultural and community values.
The mission of the MLA program is to create health, well-being, and environmental resilience through holistic design in the public realm. Our program operates fluidly in both local and global contexts and at a variety of scales, taking advantage of the wide range of highly dynamic landscapes, opportunities, and issues in the immediate vicinity, ranging from urban cores to the wilderness areas in the Rocky Mountains, from suburban sprawl to ranching and farming communities, as well as providing exciting opportunities for experiences across the U.S. and globally.
Students gain skills by working on relevant urban and rural projects, often directly engaging with diverse communities and places. Studios and courses engage current issues, define future trends, and explore the role of landscape architecture in a rapidly changing world. Throughout the program, our students learn and apply design and planning skills that use established and emergent technologies and design approaches to enhance community, foster equity, remediate environmental balance, conserve and regenerate resources, and create places that hold value for current and future generations.
Denver’s vibrant professional design and planning community supports our students through guest lectures and participation in design reviews, internships and mentor programs, and opportunities to visit offices and meet practitioners and leaders in our field.
Program Highlights
Civic Engagement & Hands-On Learning
Students have extensive opportunities for civic engagement, including paid internships at the college’s Colorado Center for Community Development (CCCD), providing diverse opportunities to work directly with and in communities across the state; and the unique and ground-breaking Learning Landscapes program whose mission is to build public places that support the well-being of children through increased exercise, access to open space and community gathering places, experiences and work in gardens, and more. At 97 schoolyards and counting, Learning Landscapes has provided children in Denver and Jefferson Counties with great places to learn through play.
Interdisciplinary Studios
The Integral Studio provides an opportunity for graduate students across the college to work together as interdisciplinary teams together with public agencies on real projects in our city. Facilitated by faculty across the disciplines, the studio emulates a real-world office environment and allows students to gain insight into the role of other parties involved in the planning and design process. The studio aims to integrate design and reject a siloed design process, advocating for more holistic and integrated design solutions rather than a process driven by one discipline. Previous projects include work done with Denver Housing Authority, City and County of Denver Community Planning and Development, and Auraria Campus.
International Study
The practice of landscape architecture is now global, and this department is a leader in providing international study opportunities. Opportunities abound to develop international partnerships with our diverse body of international and domestic students, and travel study courses offered annually.
Certificate Programs
The certificate in Geospatial Information Science for Landscape Architecture offers an opportunity to develop knowledge, skills, and critical context through cross-disciplinary study in the rapidly developing and progressively relevant platform of Geographic Information Systems (GIS).
Independent Research
Our students engage in research with faculty and on their own through optional independent studies and theses. They have presented at local, national, and international conferences and symposia such as the National Park Service Western Region CESU Conference, Environmental Design Research Association, Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture, and International Green Roof Conference.
Student Activities
R O O T is the student-run landscape architecture journal. We have published seven volumes since its inception, and it received an honorable mention in the national competition for the Douglas Haskell Award for Student Journals in 2011. Student organizations include Student Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA); the Urban Horticulture Club; and Sigma Lambda Alpha, the landscape architecture national honor society.
Our Faculty
Our program is led and taught by three licensed landscape architects and one licensed architect.
| Program Stats | 2015/16 | 2016/17 | 2017/18 | 2018/19 | 2019/20 | 2020/21 | 2021/22 |
| Retention Through Graduation Rate | 90% | 90% | 64% | 82% | 87% | TBD | TBD |
| Degrees granted per year | 22 | 27 | 18 | 14 | 14 | 12 | |
| 4-Year Graduation Rate | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 92% | TBD |
| Post-Graduation Employment Rate | No Data | 18/22 | 22/27 | 15/18 | 11/14 | 11/14 | 12/12 |
Path to Licensure
The completion of your Master of Landscape Architecture degree is your first step toward licensure. In order to legally practice landscape architecture, you will need to obtain your landscape architecture license. After earning your degree and practicing under a licensed landscape architect for two years, you will be eligible to complete the Landscape Architecture Registration Exam.
For More Information
Student Work Gallery
4th Floor Patio Green Roof Installation
Principal Researchers:
Leila Tolderlund
Student Researchers:
Kathryn Landers, Troy Britt, Leah Bryant, Jana Raines, Jake Seymour and Nick PatinStudent volunteers installed a green roof on the fourth floor patio of the CU Denver CAP building using donated green roof modules.
The Green Roof Café
Student Researchers:
Gaelen Means, Helen Davidoski, Kortney Harris and Kyle RoddyLandscape Architecture students designed the "The Green Roof Café," a mobile coffee shop and combined green roof and solar PV educational exhibit.
Historic Investigation of MCA Denver
Student Researchers:
Rio Dulaney, MLAStudents were charged with re-inventing some of Denver's iconic landscapes through abstracted photo collage as part of LA 6604, a Landscape Architecture class.
Curriculum
The academic curriculum consists of:
- Sequential and integrated design studios
- Core lecture and seminar courses
- Research and elective opportunities, including professional internships and theses
The Department of Landscape Architecture views inquiry, both individual and collective, as the means to invent, energize, inform, and evaluate design ideas, processes, and results. The curriculum emphasizes and values design and the design process coupled with knowledge and capability in the theories, technologies, sciences, arts, materials, and methods associated with the practice of Landscape Architecture. Core themes, theories, precedents, technologies, and skills of the profession are developed in the lecture and seminar courses. You will develop design capabilities in studio courses.
Curriculum integration is achieved through deliberate internal coordination within the program and through collaboration with other programs within the college as well as with other CU Denver schools and colleges. The MLA curriculum provides opportunities to facilitate the offering and testing of new courses in response to timely interests of faculty and students.
Professional practitioners representing consulting firms and governmental agencies of regional, national, and international distinction share in and contribute to the life of the department. They teach courses, participate in reviews, host internships and office visits, give presentations, exhibit their works, and mentor and interact at personal levels with students and faculty.
The MLA program's strengths lie in its broad view of Landscape Architecture, its support for the interests of the faculty, the discourse among faculty and students, and its associations with allied programs, the professional community, and the community-at-large. Successful graduates pursue diverse practices and occupations in public and private arenas and make positive differences in the quality of our social and environmental public realm.
The Department of Landscape Architecture faculty is committed to developing and implementing efficient and effective processes of assessment and evaluation to advance student learning, teaching effectiveness and program quality. The program’s five broad objectives and student learning outcomes provide the faculty and students with a shared understanding of the goals directing the curriculum. Students are expected to be proficient or above in each of these areas by the time they graduate from the program.
- Design: Students will be able to formulate questions and arguments about landscape and landscape’s role as a significant cultural medium; determine processes and practices that lead to conceptual, analytical and formative actions that transform existing situations into preferred alternatives based on ethical, communicative and content knowledge criteria.
- Ethics: Students will be able to critically evaluate local and global ramifications of social issues, diverse cultures, economic systems, ecological systems and professional practice as guiding principles for design thinking and implementation.
- Communication and Representation: Students will be able to speak, write, create and employ appropriate representational media to effectively convey ideas on subject matter contained in the professional curriculum to a variety of audiences.
- Content Knowledge: Students will be able to develop a critical understanding and application of the histories, theories, ethics and practices of landscape architecture, and its role in reflecting and shaping culture and environments.
- Research: Students will be able to understand and apply appropriate research methods for design and scholarship in landscape architecture.
Thesis
The graduate thesis in landscape architecture provides an opportunity for students to conduct independent research and design investigations that demonstrate their capacity for rigorous original thinking.
The thesis is not required for graduation and not all students are approved to write a thesis. Choosing to pursue a thesis project constitutes a significant commitment to the endeavor; the topic must be chosen with care and thoughtfully and critically developed. Topics can explore material that has been previously unstudied, reinterpret existing material in a new light, or engage research and design practices in ways that strengthen and define a final design project. For all theses, the research and products must meet the highest standards of academic excellence and contribute significantly to the discipline and/or profession. The thesis can be a traditional written and research-based thesis or a design thesis.
Pursuing a thesis requires students to enroll in a three-course sequence for a maximum total of 12 semester hours. Students are required to formulate their research proposals two full semesters prior to their enrollment for the 6-semester-hour thesis, typically taken in lieu of the final studio. To proceed through the sequence, students must have completed and passed the research tools and methods class (LDAR 6940) and have secured departmental approval of the thesis proposal.
The completion of the thesis is dependent on acceptance of the student’s work by the faculty member acting as the thesis chair and by the committee. For work to be accepted it must meet the standards established by the University of Colorado Denver for graduate thesis projects. For more information on the thesis process and examples of theses click here (forthcoming).
Tuition & Fees
The University of Colorado Denver has one of the most affordable tuition rates in Colorado. Our tuition and fees are set by the Board of Regents, the governing body of the University of Colorado. Tuition is based on student classification (undergraduate, graduate, academic program, resident or nonresident) and you can find out what rates will apply to your situation here.
All CAP Graduate Programs have WICHE-WRGP (Western Regional Graduate Program) status, which grants in-state resident tuition to students from 15 western states including California, Washington, Oregon and Arizona.
New Student Tool Kit
Supplies
*Items in bold will be needed in the first two weeks.
Architectural Supplies:
- T-square Stainless Steel Edge 36” (optional but highly encouraged)
- 24” Cork-backed Stainless Steel Ruler
- 12” or 6” Cork-backed Stainless Steel Ruler
- 12” 6-sided Architect's Scale
- 12” 6-sided Engineer's Scale
- Stainless Steel Erasing Shield
- Dusting Brush
- 24" x 36" Self-Healing Cutting Mat
- Box of Drafting Dots
- Box of Push Pins #2P or Metal T-Pins
Cutting Tools:
- X-Acto Knife (#11 Blade)
- X-Acto Classic Blades #11 size
- X-Acto Utility Knife Heavy Duty
Paper/Pads:
- Strathmore Bristol 300 Series Vellum Finish Pad 19” x 24”
- Strathmore Bristol 300 Series Vellum Finish Pad 9” x 12”
- Strathmore Watercolor 300 Series Pad 11” x 15”
- Tracing Paper (like Bienfang) Roll White or Buff 12” x 50yd (2 of)
Paint/Brushes:
- KOI Watercolor Field Box 12-pan (or similar)
- Princeton Snap White Long Round 12
- Princeton Snap White Long Round 6
Pencils/Pens/Erasers:
- 3 of Generals No. 314 Draughting Pencil
- 6B Pencil Staedtler or similar
- Derwent Coloursoft 12-pencil Tin Set (optional but encouraged)
- Conte Crayons Black, White, Sanguine (pack of 6)
- Sharpener (Generals or Brass)
- Sakura Micron Pigma Black 6-pen Set
- Pink Pearl Eraser
- Design Kneaded Eraser XLG
- Factis Pen-Style Eraser with refills
- Derwent Coloursoft 12-pencil Set (optional but highly encouraged)
- Derwent Graphitint 12-pencil Set (optional but encouraged)
Other:
- Aleene’s All Purpose Quick Dry Tacky Glue 4oz
- Tote Board Standard Clipboard 23” x 26” and large clipboard eraser
- Krylon Workable Fixatif Spray
- Modeling Pulp Board 40 x30 x 1/32
Supply Guide
You are able to purchase your studio supplies from wherever you prefer. This is a guide to some options. Some of these items you will use immediately (the ones in bold above), other items you will need but can purchase at the end of August or as needed. It is strongly encouraged that you purchase everything as soon as you can so that you are not delayed when it is time to start your assignments.
As you progress through the degree you will use various supplies. The essentials you will need to have are pencils, markers, pens, and tracing paper. We do not require many textbooks (almost none), so you should consider supplies as your main equipment expense.
- Meininger Art Supplies: CAP has a partnership with Meininger’s Art Supplies, which is located at 5th and Broadway, about 10min from campus. At the beginning of each semester, they sell studio kits to CAP students that include the supplies required for your program. Kits are delivered to the CAP building for free. They usually offer 20% coupons to CAP students at the beginning of the school year.
- Dickblick.com: This is a great option for good prices, and they have everything you need. This is my go-to for drawing supplies.
- Guiry’s: General art supplies, basswood, paper, markers, pens, graphite, paint
- Michael’s: General art supplies, basswood, paper, markers, pens, graphite, paint, they keep the good stuff behind the register and you can often get coupons.
- Plasticare: Plexiglas and acrylic products
- Thompson’s Hobbies and Crafts: Craft shop with model building supplies
- Austin Hardwoods: Wood products and tools
- Hobby Lobby: General art supplies, basswood, paper, markers, pens, graphite, paint
- Home Depot: General homebuilding/construction supplies
- Lowe’s: General homebuilding/construction supplies
- ReCreative: Non-profit art supply thrift store
- Charlie’s 2nd Hand Store: Used and new tools
- Art Parts Creative Reuse Center: Creative reuse center in Boulder
