
Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning
Landscape architects combine critical design thinking, planning and design, and knowledge of physical and social sciences, to engage situations of landscape involving health, safety, and wellbeing
The Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA) is a STEM-designated degree and fully accredited program that prepares graduate students for the rigors of professional practice, research, leadership, and community engagement. Students combine critical design thinking with creativity, and passion to address diverse landscape architecture and environmental planning projects.
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The time has come! Tonight is our LAST lecture of the semester!
Billy Fleming, the Wilks Family Director at @mchargcenter will be discussing how designers can play a role in climate justice and environmental challenges.
Join us at 6pm on Zoom or in person at Burns Auditorium.
Go to design.ncsu.edu/news/lectures for more information!
Last Wednesday, our department was represented at the 16th Annual Graduate Student Research Symposium by Marybeth Campeau, Nick Musarra, and Brian Vaughn.
Congratulations to Marybeth who won first place in the Design Category for her project “Dredge Ecologies: Climate-Adaptive Strategies for a Changing Island in a Changing Climate”.
Students and mentors, thank you for your time and hard work!

Our mission is to teach, learn, research, and apply state-of-the-art practices that create innovative and resilient landscapes focused on human and ecosystem health, safety, well-being, social equity, and quality of life.
We prepare the next generation of landscape architects to engage challenges and opportunities focused on:
- Landscape dynamics and resilient design;
- Community planning and design;
- Design for children and families;
- Research and evidence-based design strategies;
- Emerging digital design tools for representation, simulation, and evaluation.
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.
The department offers three main academic curriculum tracks:
- First Professional Masters of Landscape Architecture (Track III)
- First Professional Masters of Landscape Architecture, Advanced Standing (Track II)
- Post-Professional Degree (Track I)
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.
The department also offers the following certificates and programs:
- 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.
Graduate Certificate in City Design
The Graduate Certificate in City Design focuses on design at the scale of the city, and within neighborhoods and urban districts. Studios and seminars focus on the challenges, and opportunities facing communities and cities in the 21st century, with a particular emphasis upon principles of sustainability and urban ecology.
Learn more
Disaster Resilient Policy, Engineering and Design Certificate
The imperative motivating the Graduate Certificate in Disaster Resilient Policy, Engineering and Design is to educate the next generation of practitioners and scholars to apply knowledge gained in the classroom and in the field to reduce the rise in disaster losses and assist communities to adapt to a changing climate.
Learn more
- Inter-Institutional Study
Students at NC State University may also register for courses at local universities (UNC–Chapel Hill, UNC-Greensboro, and Duke University) paying NC State University credit fees. Our students have an exceptional range of courses and programs open to them through these inter-institutional study opportunities. Students may also take courses at the other Raleigh colleges that are members of the Cooperating Raleigh Colleges organization. Please visit the Inter-Institutional Study Page for more information.
Undergraduate Minor in Landscape Architecture
While we no longer offer a Bachelor of Landscape Architecture, it is possible for NC State University undergraduate students to take certain landscape architecture courses as electives. Please visit the Undergraduate Minor in Landscape Architecture Page for more information.
See Student Work
See more examples of student work here: Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning Student Work
Follow the College of Design on Instagram:
Student Takeover! Tomorrow, hear from Megan Brown, a senior in graphic & experience design. She`s currently in Prague and will be sharing photos from her drawing and etching studio as well as around the city.
From Megan: "Hi, I`m Megan from Cleveland, NC! I love being around nature, reading when I can, and hanging out with my friends."
Published in the winter of 1951, the first issue of The Student Publication was conceived in the wake of tragedy.
The year before, Maciej (Matthew) Nowicki — who’d been commissioned by officials in India to help design a new state capital, Chandigarh — was traveling home to Raleigh after months working abroad when the airliner he was on crashed in the Egyptian desert, killing all aboard.
Much of the first edition of The Student Publication was devoted to Nowicki’s sketches for two of his postwar projects: his collaboration with American architect Albert Mayer on the design for the planned Indian city of Chandigarh, and his commission to create new designs and improve existing structures at the North Carolina State Fairgrounds.
Read the full story about the origins of The Student Publication and explore a selection of digitized issues dating back to the first volume in 1951. 🔗 in bio.
Throughout the two decades since its first show, @ncsuart2wear has become one of the College of Design`s most iconic traditions. 💃🐺🧵
From its humble beginnings as a traditional runway show in the Pit to an immersive, technologically cutting-edge experience in Stewart Theater, Art2Wear continues to transform the imaginations of young designers.
“It taught us all a whole lot about running a production, as well as pulling together a collection. Turning a vision, a sketch, into a 3D object that can be worn was a new skill set for me. It helped me understand fit and how to think in dimension.” - Kate Fuqua, alumna and VP of Design at Coach.
On the evening of May 3, 2002, the six students presented their designs in front of a crowd of 250 people. To introduce each collection, a student walked across the stage wearing a placard bearing its name and the name of the designer. Now, it`s one of the largest student-run productions of its kind in the Southeast.
Read the full story: link in bio.