by Zack Sampson, News Correspondent
Northeastern’s School of Architecture introduced a new undergraduate program in urban landscaping Dec. 2, to begin in fall 2011.
Curriculum for the new major will focus on environmental sustainability as it applies to urban architecture, a subject on which the school already focuses on.
“The issues that landscape architecture deals with are much more about urban sustainability, groundwater management and that sort of thing, than they are about rural garden design,” George Thrush, director of the School of Architecture, said.
The new offering will take an interdisciplinary approach to architecture as it related to other subjects, like civil engineering, earth science and business.
Landscape architecture has grown significantly over the past few years as both a profession and course of study. According to the College Board, 83 other colleges offer degrees in the subject, including top architecture schools such as Cornell University and the Rhode Island School of Design.
Some students said they are not surprised by the announcement due to the subject’s recent rise nationally.
“Since green architecture is becoming more popular, it’s in higher demand. I can see why they’re adding the program,” middler architecture major Cait McCarthy said.
Thrush said he hopes the program will increase both the number of students in and current standing of the School of Architecture. Last year, the school was ranked 14 out of about 120 schools of architecture in the country, according to the school’s website.
Thrush said administration expects an estimated eight to 10 additional students to enter the school as a direct result of the urban landscape program.
“The addition of this new program will continue to generate, I think, interest and attention to the school. To that extent, it will raise its profile significantly,” Thrush said. “I think green architecture is becoming more important, and people are attracted to that more, so the program will probably become more popular.”
The new degree will apply only to incoming architecture students because the current plan for implementation of urban landscape courses. The program will start next year with core freshmen classes, and any sophomore level courses will accordingly become available as those first students move into sophomore year.
Still, current students will have the opportunity to take classes in urban landscape, and the school will likely create a minor in the subject.
“It has not been worked out yet, but I suspect there will be [one],” Thrush said.
Some architecture students hoping to expand their studies have expressed interest in pursuing a minor in the subject.
“If it was like a minor or like an add-on to the architecture [program], I would do it,” freshman architecture major Carl Damas said.
The development of a new degree program comes at a time of significant change for Northeastern, as the new College of Arts, Media, and Design was founded this year under Dean Xavier Costa. The new dean has publicly expressed support for the initiative.
“We look forward to extending the connection between theory and practice that exists in the urban architecture program to the urban landscape program,” Costa said in a recent news release.
One crucial requirement of the program’s development is an increase in the School of Architecture’s resources.
“We thought we were only going to be looking for one faculty position this year, now we’re looking for two. One of them is a senior faculty position,” Thrush said.
He said the School of Architecture is looking to further expand in the more distant future.
“I think we’ll end up in a year’s time, we’ll have as many as four more faculty members on campus with a real expertise in sustainability,” Thrush said.
Beyond the need for new faculty, the urban landscape program will require space, a commodity that is already limited in the architecture department. Some students believe that the new course of study will need to work cooperatively with the current architecture program.
“[They’re] probably going to have to find more studio space, unless they make it in some other building, and they’re probably going to have to tap into architecture’s resources,” Damas said.
Administrators in the School of Architecture also recognize the impact the new program will have as it develops.
“In the near term, we will be able to fit them in our existing studio. In the medium term, we are going to have to get more space,” Thrush said. But he said he doesn’t think this year’s freshman will be able to get the new degree because “the timing won’t be right.”
No definite plan for acquiring more space for the school exists yet; however, a few possibilities do stand out.
“There is a Forsyth Building over near the Museum of Fine Arts that the university is leasing, and even though architecture’s not going to have space in it, some of the people who will be moving into that building will be emptying out other spaces on campus,” Thrush said.
Although no immediate resource shortage is expected due to the urban landscape program, some architecture students still believe the school should provide more for current individuals involved in the major.
“It’s pretty expensive to be just a regular architecture student,” Damas said. “I think that it’s almost ridiculous the kind of stuff that they ask students to pay for on their own and to buy things like that. If they have money to be starting new degree programs, they should probably have enough to help out their students as far as like, software or supplies.”
