Registration Eligibility
n/a
Start Date
05/06/2016
End Date
05/07/2016
Description
Universities are custodians of some of the world's most significant designed landscapes. Beyond the many historical campuses—centers of academic life— universities also manage gardens, botanical gardens, arboreta, farms, forests, biotic reserves, even far-flung environmental research stations.
On the occasion of the 75th anniversary of Dumbarton Oaks, which certainly counts among the most significant cultural landscapes in any university's care, the Garden and Landscape Studies program is planning a symposium on the history of academic landscapes and their prospects and perils as universities go global and digital. History provides numerous examples of pedagogical landscapes: the monastic-style cloisters that provided at least one model for academic settings implied ideas about the collective and contemplative life, while the “academical village” at the University of Virginia—where students and instructors lived in close proximity to each other and to the library, near gardens that produced some of their food—provided an early instance of self-sufficiency and perhaps even sustainability. More recently, land grant universities were established to teach applied agriculture.
But how valid are these pedagogical objectives today? Are universities still cultivating self-conscious relationships between their landscapes and their academic missions? Are these landscapes, beyond their applications in curriculum, still being used to foster new thinking in landscape design, aesthetics, environmental ethics, or community history? Universities might be seen as models of density, walkability, and sustainability, but how effective are they at transmitting these lessons to their students or to the larger public? If one were to imagine an ideal campus today, what would it look like, and what would people learn from it?
Furthermore, thinking globally, what are the models for universities outside of Europe and North America? As campus forms are exported to the developing world, how relevant and usable are they? And how are universities dealing with the challenges of preservation, as student populations expand, uses change, surroundings develop, and neighboring communities evolve? Are there options for preservation beside resistance or capitulation? Can universities become models of adaptability?
Location
Washington, DC
Distance Learning
No
Course Equivalency
Yes
Subjects
Campus Planning & Design
Energy Conservation / Renewable Energy
Historic Preservation
Site Planning
Sustainable Development & Design
Water / Stormwater Management
Health, Safety and Welfare
Yes
Hours
12.0
Learning Outcomes
1) How and why have universities come to be responsible for so many different kinds of landscapes?
2) What role do these landscapes play today in academic life, pedagogy, and cultural politics?
3) Are universities still cultivating self-conscious relationships between their landscapes and their academic missions?
4) Are these landscapes, beyond their applications in curriculum, still being used to foster new thinking in landscape design, aesthetics, environmental ethics, or community history?
5) Universities might be seen as models of density, walkability, and sustainability, but how effective are they at transmitting these lessons to their students or to the larger public?
6) If one were to imagine an ideal campus today, what would it look like, and what would people learn from it?
7) what are the models for universities outside of Europe and North America?
8) As campus forms are exported to the developing world, how relevant and usable are they?
9) How are universities dealing with the challenges of preservation, as student populations expand, uses change, surroundings develop, and neighboring communities evolve?
10) Are there options for preservation beside resistance or capitulation?
11) Can universities become models of adaptability?
Instructors
Peter Alagona; Hilary Ballon; Joseph Claghorn; John Davis; Burak Erdim; Everett Fly; David Foster; Gary Hilderbrand; Mark Hough; John Dixon Hunt; Karen Van Lengen; Dino J. Martins; Tianjie Zhang
Course Codes
Provider
Dumbarton Oaks