This seminar explores the value and potential of computer-aided analysis, simulation, and design in landscape architecture. Computation has greatly expanded the means by which designers can engage the temporal and relational qualities inherent to the dynamic medium of landscape. Students engage in combining the computational capacities of geospatial analysis (GIS), computational fluid dynamics (Aquaveo SRH-2d, SLOSH, Rhino CFD), and parametric software (Grasshopper) to investigate new modes of defining, articulating, and reorganizing vacant sites along the banks of the Delaware River. Demonstrations of the essential tools and techniques are presented and discussed throughout the semester, along with relevant project examples, readings, and guest lecturers.

Low cost, simple-to-use surveying and sensing equipment are increasingly available to designers. Imagining technologies form our primary means of translating and expressing our environment. Yet, sensing and syncing data collected across scales, however, remains cumbersome. Through hands-on field collection exercises and in-class demos, students will be introduced to an array of sensing tools that are central to collecting and analyzing environmental changes across scales: Arduino sensors; Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (aka drones); RTK GPS receivers; and image recognition software. This technology and representation seminar is taught collaboratively; the primary instructor will participate in all modules.