Conway School of Landscape Design-Link to home map of Conway, MA Graduate Program in Sustainable Landscape Planning and Design
...As university programs around the country strain to meet the growing demand for landscape architects, "if the demand gets met it's likely to be done by alternative models such as the Conway School," says Dean Bork, ASLA, who heads the Department of Landscape Architecture at Virginia Tech. "I think you'll see more private landscape architecture programs emerging if the demand for graduates remains what it is right now. Conway is ahead of the curve."

—Jane Roy Brown, Landscape Architecture Magazine, March 2007

If you're ready to make a difference in the world, Conway is ready for you

The Conway School of Landscape Design is the only institution of its kind in North America. Its focus is sustainable landscape planning and design. Each year, through its accredited, ten-month graduate program just eighteen to nineteen graduate students from diverse backgrounds are immersed in a range of applied landscape studies, ranging in scale from residences to regions. Graduates go on to play significant professional roles in various aspects of landscape planning and design.

What makes Conway an exciting place to study is a curriculum that is based on:

  • REGENERATIVE DESIGN — We work together to discover what sustainability can mean to a project and to the planet and then go beyond that to discover opportunities for restoring, reclaiming, and regenerating degraded places and communities;

  • REAL-WORLD PROJECTS — from the start of each term students manage their own real projects with real clients;

  • CAREFULLY INTEGRATED LEARNING — classes, studio time, field trips, and guest speakers are organized around the projects for that term, rather than around separate courses on separate topics;

  • WHOLE AND COMPLEX UNDERSTANDING OF NATURAL AND CULTURAL SYSTEMS — inter-relationships across scales are examined, no matter the project scope;

  • DIVERSE, INNOVATIVE TEACHING FORMATS — in appreciation of individual learning styles;

  • HIGH TEACHER-TO-STUDENT RATIO — much instruction is one-on-one or through small group interaction, made possible because there are only eighteen to nineteen students at a time;

  • COLLABORATION, NOT COMPETITION — each student or team of students has its own project, and everyone shares the goal of learning about design that is ecologically and socially sensitive through all of the projects being undertaken that term;

  • A HUMANITIES PERSPECTIVE — We explore the roles of values, ethics, and meaning in landscape design and offer practical training in oral and written communication skills, which are integrated throughout the year; and

  • FULL INTEGRATION INTO ITS LANDSCAPE IN SCENIC NEW ENGLAND — activities take advantage of our setting, using it as a springboard to consider landscapes elsewhere.

Is Conway for you?  Find out more>>

The Conway School of Landscape Design, Inc., a Massachusetts non-profit corporation organized under Chapter 180 of the General Laws, is a professional training school of landscape design and land use planning. As an equal opportunity institution, it does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national or ethnic origin, age, gender, sexual orientation, religion, marital or veteran status in the administration of the educational, admissions, employment, or loan policies, or in any other school-administered program.