Landscape Architecture + Environmental Planning
Preparing Students for Critical Thinking and Professional Practice
Offering a master’s of landscape architecture degree, the Department of Landscape Architecture + Environmental Planning at NC State University trains professionals for critical thinking in design, prepares them for professional practice, and provides opportunities for research, leadership and community engagement within local and global contexts.
This STEM-designated and LAAB-accredited program allows students the opportunity to work at projects across scales – from parks and civic spaces to regional planning – to address natural resource conservation, environmental resilience and the impacts of climate change.
Faculty expertise spans both regional and global connections, with research and academic practice across North Carolina, as well as Latin America, Europe, Africa and beyond. An active lecture series brings distinguished practitioners to the campus from the Americas, Mexico, Colombia, and Turkey, amongst others.
Image credit above: LAR 507 Advanced Interdisciplinary Studio
Urbanism Across Calzada Mexico Tacuba – Infrastructure as Culture in Mexico City, Fall 2025
Andrea Padilla, MLA ’26 | Instructor: María Bellalta, Instructor Support: Claire Henkel
LAR 507 Advanced Interdisciplinary Studio: Urbanism Across Calzada Mexico Tacuba – Infrastructure as Culture in Mexico City
Master of Landscape Architecture Degrees + Graduate Minors
Certificates
Research Opportunities
A Program Framework that Transcends Geographic Boundaries
The NC State MLA program is grounded in a vision that integrates design, ecology, and environmental planning from a global, intercultural, and socially engaged perspective. Understanding the contemporary landscape requires transcending disciplinary and geographic boundaries, incorporating knowledge and experiences from multiple territories, ecologies, and communities. Our program situates landscape architecture at the intersection of environmental conservation and accelerated urbanization, with an emphasis on resilient landscapes, water management, adaptive climate infrastructure, and collective well-being.
Faculty have led international workshops on urban design, habitat protection, and coastal resilience. Research initiatives such as The Just Lab connect landscape with African and indigenous communities, recognizing the deep ancestral history linking North Carolina and the African continent. The Natural Learning Initiative explores the connection between environmental design and the well-being of communities. The Coastal Dynamics Design Lab (CDDL) completes this intellectual ecosystem by addressing coastal resilience through applied design.
Together, these assets position LAEP as a program with a vocation for disciplinary leadership: a department that not only trains excellent professionals but also generates relevant knowledge and builds the academic and institutional bridges that landscape architecture needs to address the territorial, environmental, and social challenges of our time.
Graduate Landscape Architecture
The Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA) is a STEM-designated degree and LAAB-accredited program that prepares graduate students for the rigors of professional practice, research, leadership, and community engagement. Our students, faculty, and local design community seek to understand the impact of human actions on the land and to respond with community-based design strategies. We are dedicated to teaching, researching, and practicing design processes that acknowledge the interdependence of built landscapes and ecological, social, and economic systems.
Degree Programs
The first half of the academic program prepares students for the current practice and discipline of landscape architecture. It equips them with the core knowledge base, tools, processes, and skills in design, site works, history and theory, planning, research and the culture of professional practice.
The second half of the academic program propels students into the profession and discipline of the future that they will help evolve and lead. It positions students to pursue substantive inquiry into their own, those of the faculty, and those of the larger extended community. Students master bodies of knowledge, pursue evidence-based research, and hone verbal, written, and graphic communication skills.
Throughout their program of study, students combine critical design thinking talents with their intelligence, creativity, and passions to frame, engage and challenge the questions, problems, and situations of landscape that involve health, safety, wellbeing, and quality of life.
Graduate Minors and Certificate Programs
Graduate minors are available to all students and consist of nine credit hours of courses, in another graduate degree-granting discipline, listed as 400-level or above. A member of that degree’s faculty may serve as a third member of the student’s final project committee. Certificates offered in GIS, Public Policy and Horticultural Science may be of particular interest. Please visit the Graduate Minors and Certificate Page for more information.
See Student Work
See more examples of student work here: Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning Student Work
LAR 501
LAR 502
LAR 503
LAR 507: Coastal Dynamics Design Studio
LAR 507: Mexico City Studio
LAR 507: Urban Design Studio
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A Storied History
NC State’s landscape architecture program is one of the oldest in the American South, with roots stretching back to the 1890s. The program saw its first graduates in 1932, with Elizabeth Lawrence, author of The Southern Garden and a trailblazing figure in the profession, among its first cohort. The program joined the School of Design in 1948 alongside architecture, cementing its identity within a rigorous, interdisciplinary design culture.
It earned ASLA accreditation in 1951, becoming one of the first two accredited programs in the South. In its earliest decades, visiting lecturers included Thomas Church, Garrett Eckbo, Dan Kiley, Lawrence Halprin, and Roberto Burle Marx. Early graduates distinguished themselves internationally: George Patton and Richard Bell received the prestigious Rome Prize. In 1969, faculty and students launched Design Workshop directly out of NC State. Today, the department continues this legacy of design excellence, environmental inquiry, and global engagement.
Source: Serrano, Nicholas. “Landscape Architecture: An Early History.” NC State College of Design, July 12, 2023.