Conway School of Landscape Design-Link to home map of Conway, MA Graduate Program in Sustainable Landscape Planning and Design
Conway is known throughout North America as a leader in landscape architectural education; its freedom from academic strictures permits a degree of experimentation which would be difficult to achieve within a larger university context. Many innovative teaching techniques developed there have been subsequently adopted at other schools.

This is a unique institution providing an intensive project-oriented training which is ideal for the mature and highly motivated student.

—Ron Williams, Landscape Architect
Principal, Williams, Assalin, & Ackaoui; Professeur agrégé, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Québec 

The Academic Program

The Conway School of Landscape Design offers an intensive, ten-month curriculum that introduces students to all phases of design work, from residential design to regional land use studies. Students undertake design projects with contracted clients, through which they learn and apply skills from writing the initial project proposal to presenting final design plans. The program provides:

  • a basic knowledge of ecological, geological, and climatological processes;

  • an introduction to the techniques and principles for modifying land and implementing designs;

  • instruction in clear communication of design ideas and information;

  • discussion about the vital relationships between humans and their natural and built environments; and

  • outdoor learning experiences exploring ecological processes and the influence of historic human uses.

Underlying precepts of CSLD curriculum

Learning by doing is the most efficient and effective way to learn. By applying classroom concepts to real projects at the residential and community scale, CSLD students rapidly develop the skills and knowledge to be responsible and independent designers and planners. In turn, local citizens, communities, and non-profit organizations receive planning and design services at cost.

Clear, concise communication — oral, written, and graphic — is essential to success. The landscape designer must not only be able to develop reasonable designs; s/he must be able to explain why these designs work. For the public at large to understand and adopt design solutions, the reasons must survive along with the plans, long after the designer has left the scene.

The process of discovery is more effective than memorizing facts or formulas. The Conway School of Landscape Design teaches its students how to be self-educators by encouraging them to direct their own education. To this end, students identify individual educational goals at the beginning of the year, and monitor the achievement of those goals as the year progresses. This skill enables graduates to be life-long learners.

Instruction at the Conway School of Landscape Design goes beyond techniques, stressing instead the processes that organize these techniques and reveal underlying concepts. The ability to use an organized process enables the student to address any problem.

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The Masters Degree

The Conway School of Landscape Design degree — a Master of Arts in Landscape Design — is an academic one rather than a professional one. How does the degree offered by CSLD resemble and differ from a Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA) degree? Both teach planning and design, at large and small scales, for human uses of the land. Both try to impart a functional design process. Yet the differences are significant.

Most graduate Landscape Architecture masters' programs are three years (two with an undergraduate L.A. degree) and are associated with large universities. Classes are separately taught, and can be taken independently. Increasingly, MLA programs include experience in computer-aided design (CAD). The CSLD program does not offer as much instruction time as longer L.A. programs, especially in design history, engineering aspects of design, or graphics techniques, and it offers no specialized instruction in CAD. These are not its aims.

Rather, the Master of Arts in Landscape Design offered at the Conway School of Landscape Design represents an integrated curriculum where classes complement design practice. Instruction occurs in a small, intimate, and supportive environment. There is an unambiguous emphasis on environmental responsibility, oral and written communication skills, and project management. The emphasis given human and community issues in planning and design, and oral and written communication, make this a Master of Arts program.

The Conway School of Landscape Design grants the Master of Arts in Landscape Design degree by the authority of the Massachusetts Higher Education Coordinating Council (formerly the Board of Regents). The School is accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, Inc.

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Graduation Requirements

In addition to successfully completing three major design projects, each student must demonstrate communication abilities through written logs, essays, project correspondence and reports, illustrative and technical graphics, and design presentations.

To receive a Master of Arts in Landscape Design, the student must demonstrate understanding of design theory, natural and built environments, design communication, and professional development and practice.

  • Gaining information and ideas: Students must regularly attend and actively participate in classes, workshops, educational field trips, and special events offered at the School, and satisfactorily fulfill all academic exercises, assignments, and readings.

  • Applying understanding: Students must complete three major design projects from initial contract with an outside client to final delivery of all necessary drawings, reports, public presentations, technical data, research, or recommendations.

  • Expressing understanding and abilities: Students earn 30 graduate credits in design communication abilities through:

    • logs documenting education;

    • essays integrating learning with individual goals for education and professional work;

    • project correspondence, proposals, and reports for clients;

    • drawings and other graphics illustrating design information, ideas, and plans; and,

    • design presentations to class members, faculty, clients, public audiences, and visiting professionals.

Core faculty continually guides and evaluates student work in the studio, classroom, and individual conferences. Students at the Conway School do not receive grades; rather, they are expected to revise and improve their written, graphic, and project work until it meets the approval of faculty, client, and the student her/himself.

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