College of Design - Landscape Architecture
About US
Introduction

The CYCU Department of Landscape Architecture was founded in 2004 and it formally established its Master’s Program in 2011. With a stable footing and a professional attitude of reflection we have opened up a new field of vision for landscape design –and have already been affirmed by both the academic and professional sectors.

“Landscaping Studies” is not simply focused on exploring ways to manage the designs of outdoor gardens, yards, parks and other outdoor spaces, but rather, it is concerned with ideas involved with creating “scenery”; whether it is cultural scenes within a natural environment or urban settings, communities, residential environmental planning or other spatial design. In fact landscaping is a concrete manifestation of the existence of mankind here on earth. Landscaping explains the relationship between man and nature and it expresses the contents of civilization.

The CYCU Department of Landscape Architecture hopes to educate and encourage students to cherish, respect and treat fairly all life-forms, cultures and environments, cultivating landscapers who pour their hearts and souls into protecting and creating beautiful environments that will sustain all life. We also endeavor to train landscape professionals with independent thinking, critical judgment, creativity and a broad base of knowledge related to landscaping. Furthermore, we hope students will possess solid professional landscape architecture skills and abilities to both communicate and cooperate in an interdisciplinary context.

Therefore we emphasize:

  1. A democratic approach to ecological planning and design
  2. A global view with local practicality
  3. Real experience with interdisciplinary cooperative education learning methods

Mission

The CYCU Department of Landscape Architecture puts effort into promoting and developing democratic ecological design plans.

We hope to teach people to reverently, respectfully and fairly treat all life-forms, cultures and environments, and educate landscape designers in a way that they will be willing to dedicate their heart and soul towards protecting and creating beautiful and sustainable environments for harmonious living.

We also aim to train independent, critical, creative thinkers who will possess broad knowledge in landscaping, strong discipline and solid capability in professional landscape design, and ability to communicate and cooperate in an interdisciplinary context.

Objectives

  1. Establishing a professional attitude and rationale while using service-learning and real experience to care for the local environment.
    Features: use “outdoor education” and “service learning” to initiate self-learning strategies:
    A: First Year : “learning from the natives” and the “country side long stay” both involve learning local wisdom from the tribes, fishing villages and agricultural communities about how to communicate with nature; allowing students to get to know and care for the local environment. The “big tree classroom” gives students a participant design method allowing them to be creative with the environment. B: Year Three: Community building service learning activities.
  2. Raise the level of professional knowledge and use international cooperation and advanced learning to develop a global perspective.
    In order to reach education objectives, the main focuses of “environment building”, “ecological co-habitation” and “cultural landscape” are used with a foundation of “basic learning” and “design planning” for education integration. The “environment building” curriculum series is aimed at equipping the students with professional knowledge and practical skills in landscape design. The “ecological co-habitation” curriculum series involves education in global living conditions and related natural environments, ecological relationships, and practical experience. The “cultural landscape” series applies concepts, knowledge, and practical experience from humanities, because they are related to landscaping. In addition to providing students with fundamental skills in art and philosophy, the “basic learning” section also teaches students how to use skills and tools to express themselves and communicate through thought, drawing and writing. The hands-on “landscape design” and “environmental planning” curriculum is designed to integrate the above mentioned knowledge and skills and train students with core design planning capabilities.
    Curriculum features: Develop a global perspective through international exchange:
    A: First year: “Big-tree Classroom” participatory-design and international education workshop
    B: Second year: visit “classic Chinese garden” in Suzhou, Mainland China.
    C: Third and Fourth year: “global learning” overseas internship: four groups individually heading to North America (cooperating with University of California, Berkley and University of Washington, Seattle); Europe (cooperating with University of Manchester, UK); Australia (The University of New South Wales,NSW);Southeast Asia (cooperating with UCSI University, Malaysia); or Mainland China (cooperating with Tianjin University), to engage in a professional internship that will raise students’ international perspective,professional knowledge, skills and discipline.
  3. Sustainable environmental design capabilities with the sense of integration and interdisciplinary education and create living environments harmonious with nature.
    A: Supply a range of courses related to ecology and co-habitation
    B: Strengthen practical courses and cooperation with practitioners: connect with real environmental issues, such as national and planning, city and town development, sustainable management and community building.

Future Prospects

When compared with other design fields, both in Taiwan and abroad, landscape profession is a younger field of study. Taiwan particularly lacks landscape professionals with integrated skills. At the same time, due to the deterioration of the local environment, in recent years the government has been actively promoting the legislation of the “Urban and Rural Landscape Construction plan,” “Landscaping Act” and “Environmental Department” as well as a “Landscape Architect” license system. All these reflect current needs and possible future development areas for landscape professionals. We hope that CYCU Department of Landscape Architecture graduates will be able to use their skills to face reality and promote the dialogue between land and culture.

Undergraduate

Curricular planning is based on a four year course of study. In years one to three, basic training is covered, while in the transition to the fourth year, students take part in a professional internship in summer time(arrangements are made for students to a firm to intern or go abroad for travel studies); and in the fourth year students integrate their professional skills in the graduation design project.

  1. The required courses in the department curriculum include 91 credits (including 20 credits as part of common undergraduate required courses) and 23 elective credits; these may be taken over separate years.
  2. Undergraduate students must complete 128 credits for graduation, of these at least 23 credits must be elective courses offered by this department. (Including 12 general education credits)

Due to the fact that the course content for design covers a broad scope, which, in addition to knowledge related to landscaping, also includes architecture, city planning and other environmental planning and design related concepts and professional knowledge, as well as cultural landscape, co-habitation ecology and social sciences related notions; therefore course study is organized based on each year of study: The first year work towards strengthening basic professional knowledge with foundational curriculum, while later studies emphasize on cultivating a larger breadth of professional and theoretic knowledge. The courses for each year of study can also further be categorized into six core integrated axes including “common courses”, “design and planning courses”, “basic skills courses”, “environment building courses”, “cultural landscape courses”, and “symBiotic ecology courses” with “design courses” acting as the main axis.

Graduate

The research direction of “symBiotic environment building” in our Master’s Program includes the related“sustainability” subject matter from the College of Design and therefore curriculum is planned with an interdisciplinary and dialogue concept of education in mind. In order to expand the professional field of“symBiotic environment building”, in addition to responding to the needs of professional landscaping,interdisciplinary courses are also provided.

The Department of Landscape Architecture Master’s Program is set up to respond to the new global trend of “sustainable living environment building”, new needs for local “sustainable state owned, urban and rural landscape building” and the unified objective of “sustainable thinking” which is part of the University’s environmental education.

Consequently, the main research direction of the Landscape Architecture Department and Faculty is“symBiotic environment building”. The course of study, therefore, integrates professional skills derived from science, nature, humanities and art education; and it is based on the fundamental notions of “environmental symBiotics” and “cultural landscaping”. The research direction of “symBiotic environment building” to implement community oriented “urban and city design” with “design research” provides a means of integration along with four intended research and curriculum points of development.

From the perspective of sustainable environment building, when trying to understand the constructs of human living spaces, it is essential to take into consideration the behavior of living things and the phenomena of natural ecosystems, while at the same time incorporating the thoughts and activities of people and taking a humble approach towards observing and learning the “symBiotic environment” needed for the survival of mankind.

By considering the dimensions of space, coming from individual organisms, indoor living spaces, architectural structures, communities, and towns and cities, it becomes possible to extend the spatial dimensions of a specific area. In a symBiotic environment, each type of relationship needs time to yield fruit and must pass through a historical and cultural process of development, so that in time, with human intervention, the space’s efficiency of the ecological interworkings may increase. Furthermore, the ecological interworkings as they relate to the choices of human intervention are connected to important issues that need to be the focus urgent research.

A total of 39 credits must be completed for graduation; of these there are 21 credits which are required courses, 6 credits for the thesis and at least 12 credits which are electives from this department.

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CONTACT US
TEL:886-3-2655501~5
Fax:886-3-2656449
yhwang@cycu.edu.tw