Course Description: This course provides students with an introduction to the use of plant materials in the built environment, drawing upon contemporary approaches to landscape architecture and sustainable landscape design. Practice in these fields increasingly combines ecological and horticultural science with theories of aesthetics to create landscapes that provide ecosystem services in addition to aesthetic value. The course is structured in such a way to provide students with concrete working knowledge - identification and performative characteristics - of approximately 120 plants that are somewhat ubiquitous in the southeast or across the United States with a particular emphasis on plants that are well-adapted to urban situations. In addition to plant identification, the course will provide students with a series of frameworks through which to consider how plants have been or could be utilized, as well as emerging ecological theories such as novel ecosystems.
Blending contemporary naturalism
Project by Brandi Sherbert, Fall 2023
Archetypal prototypes
Novel territories for biological matter
Plant Walks
Aesculus parviflora, Bottlebrush Buckeye
Cercis canadensis, Eastern Redubud
Dryopteris erythrosora, Autumn Fern
Quercus palustris, Pin Oak