Master of Landscape Architecture

The Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA) at CU Denver is a STEM-designated and fully accredited degree program for students who have a bachelor’s degree in an unrelated field as well as for those who already hold a Bachelor of Landscape Architecture or a Bachelor of Architecture degree. 

The mission of the MLA program is to create health, well-being, and environmental resilience through holistic design in the public realm. We work across all scales of landscape practice, taking advantage of the wide range of highly dynamic landscapes, opportunities, and issues in our immediate vicinity of the Rocky Mountains as well as engaging across the country and beyond. Our educational engagements range from urban cores to wilderness areas and from suburban sprawl to ranching and farming communities. Many of our studios and other classes engage directly with community groups, non-profit organizations, or local governments, taking on real-world challenges and providing direct support to proposals for positive change in our landscapes.

Student Work

Skyline Park Historic American Landscapes Survey

Principal Researchers:

Ann Komara

Ann Mullins

 Skyline Park was designed in the 1970s by noted modernist landscape architect Lawrence Halprin. This Historic American Landscapes Survey, HALS-CO-01, was the first HALS documentation project in Colorado. It was also the first project nationally to document a mid-century modern landscape. The documentation, conducted during Skyline Park's demolition in 2003, was funded in part by grant awards from the State Historical Fund, a program on History Colorado, the Colorado Historical Society. This project has been recognized with a State of Colorado Stephen Hart Preservation Award.

Lawrence Halprin's Skyline Park

Principal Researchers:

  • Ann Komara
This book by Ann Komara, Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture,​showcases the acclaimed landscape architect Lawrence Halprin’s urban renewal effort for downtown Denver in the 1970s. Drawing on the rugged beauty of the city’s natural surroundings for inspiration, Halprin created a signature landmark of fountains, walls, and berms that served as an urban promenade and an oasis from the surrounding streets. This monograph honors the legacy of Halprin’s original work by presenting the most comprehensive documentation available of the park’s conception, construction, and use before its total redesign in 2003. It features new photography, archival drawings, and original documentation.

CCC Camp ANF-1 HALS

Principal Researchers:

  • Ann Komara
 Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Camp ANF-1 (Pebble Dell) is located on private land within the Allegheny National Forest (ANF) near Duhring, Pennsylvania. Currently known as the Summers Allegheny Trail Rides Camp, it is one of a handful of extant CCC camps nationally. The enrollees in this camp planted the first stands of trees replenishing the ravaged Allegheny National Forest, an action placing these men at the forefront of the conservation movement spearheaded by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The men from ANF-1 also built roads, worked on watershed stream improvements, and helped construct local state parks.

Fort Laramie 3D/HABS

Principal Researchers:

  • Ekaterini Vlahos
  • Mike Nulty
  • Jenn Thomas
  • Karen Wolf
 Graduate architecture and landscape architecture students developed a new set of digital media, including interactive panoramic imagery and 3-D computer models of the site, structures, and context of the Laramie National Historic Site in southern Wyoming. The work was undertaken for the Heritage Preservation Programs branch of the Intermountain Regional Office of the National Park Service in Lakewood, Colorado. This Historic American Buildings Survey demonstration project used a combination of traditional documentation methods and state-of-the-art digital technology in order to provide highly visual and interactive documentation of a NPS historic site. It specifically involved the compilation and production of an inventory; layout design of information links including storyboards of interactive website construction options; SketchUp 3-D site maps related to four historic period models of Fort Laramie; and virtual tours utilizing fly-through videos and photostitching.
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Curriculum

Program Objectives:

The Department of Landscape Architecture faculty is committed to developing and implementing efficient and effective processes of assessment and evaluation to advance student learning, teaching effectiveness and program quality.  The program’s five broad objectives and student learning outcomes provide the faculty and students with a shared understanding of the goals directing the curriculum. Students are expected to be proficient or above in each of these areas by the time they graduate from the program.

Design: Students will be able to formulate questions and arguments about landscape and landscape’s role as a significant cultural medium; determine processes and practices that lead to conceptual, analytical and formative actions that transform existing situations into preferred alternatives based on ethical, communicative and content knowledge criteria.

Ethics: Students will be able to critically evaluate local and global ramifications of social issues, diverse cultures, economic systems, ecological systems and professional practice as guiding principles for design thinking and implementation.

Communication and Representation: Students will be able to speak, write, create and employ appropriate representational media to effectively convey ideas on subject matter contained in the professional curriculum to a variety of audiences.

Content Knowledge: Students will be able to develop a critical understanding and application of the histories, theories, ethics and practices of landscape architecture, and its role in reflecting and shaping culture and environments.

Research: Students will be able to understand and apply appropriate research methods for design and scholarship in landscape architecture.

Travel Study Opportunities

Tuition & Fees

The University of Colorado Denver has one of the most affordable tuition rates in Colorado.  Our tuition and fees are set by the Board of Regents, the governing body of the University of Colorado.  Tuition is based on student classification (undergraduate, graduate, academic program, resident or nonresident) and you can find out what rates will apply to your situation here.

 All CAP Graduate Programs have WICHE-WRGP (Western Regional Graduate Program) status, which grants in-state resident tuition to students from 15 western states including California, Washington, Oregon and Arizona.

Program Stats

 

Program Stats2015/162016/172017/182018/192019/202020/212021/22
Retention Through Graduation Rate90%90%64%82%87%TBDTBD
Degrees granted per year222718141412 
4-Year Graduation Rate100%100%100%100%100%92%TBD
Post-Graduation Employment RateNo Data18/2222/2715/1811/1411/1412/12

Path to Licensure

The completion of your Master of Landscape Architecture degree is your first step toward licensure. In order to legally practice landscape architecture, you will need to obtain your landscape architecture license. After earning your degree and practicing under a licensed landscape architect for two years, you will be eligible to complete the Landscape Architecture Registration Exam.

For More Information

Living in Denver

Landscape Architecture Contacts

College of Architecture and Planning

CU Denver

CU Denver Building

1250 14th Street

2000

Denver, CO 80202

303-315-1000

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