This year, MLA1 students engaged in a variety of dynamic learning environments to deeply explore the field of landscape architecture, examining the relationship between theory and practice while gaining an understanding of the discipline's global context.

Through experiences landscapes across Manchester and beyond, complemented by precedent studies from global contexts, students engaged with the complexities of landscape systems, addressing their social, environmental, ecological, technical, and theoretical dimensions.

The MLA Studio+ unit, designed to support the studio, enabled students to develop both digital and analogue skills to underpin their creative work. Additionally, the technology and planting studios featured live site visits, including the recently constructed MMU Dalton Building Landscape Court, the All-Saints Park Public Realm, the Glade of Light Memorial Project and the Mayfield Park, expanding our students' knowledge of material, planting, and specification.

Engagement with alternative perspectives on landscape architectural history and the potential for sustainable urban futures enriched the theoretical discourse, encouraging students to develop a critical and reflective approach. This empowered them to create connections between theory and placemaking, testing complex and meaningful propositions in the studio.

The year culminated in an MSA Live project of each student’s choice, empowering them to collaborate with real communities and contribute to meaningful change. Other highlights included a visit to Brockholes Nature Reserve and a guided tour of Liverpool’s Strand, by BCA Landscape, offering valuable insights into public realm transformation.

Studio

Landscape Atelier 1a

Landscape Atelier 1a

The first-year cohort of this year’s MLA programme brought a wealth of global perspectives, professional experience, and diverse landscape cultures, enriching collaboration within the Semester 1 design studio.

The studio brief titled Connect, comprised two distinct projects, each focused-on contrasting yet interconnected sites and objectives, centred around Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall. In Project 1, students worked collaboratively to explore opportunities for human–nature interaction. Engaging with the subjective experience of place, they creatively documented ideas and conducted site surveys, investigating themes such as natural processes, topography, materials, boundaries, and patterns of movement and activity. Working in groups, they developed ephemeral installations before progressing to individual designs, both stages encouraging meaningful engagement with natural phenomena.

Project 2 built upon insights gained in the first project, challenging students to design a park that fosters shared landscape experiences. Through in-depth research, students identified a local community group to serve as the focus of their design, tailoring aims and objectives to meet its specific needs and aspirations.

Throughout both projects, MLA Studio+, led by Sandeep Menon, provided invaluable guidance in developing innovative communication strategies to convey research, design evolution, and final outputs. Employing a wide range of techniques and media, students demonstrated creativity and ingenuity, qualities clearly reflected in the accompanying student work.

Landscape Atelier 1b

Landscape Atelier 1b

Regenerative Futures: Designing Multi-Functional Landscapes for Sustainable Living

The second semester design studio of MLA1 focused on a site at the edge of Knutsford's green belt, challenging students to design across scales—from 1:10,000 to 1:50. Titled Regenerative Futures, the brief asked students to envision a multi-dimensional landscape encompassing a mixed-use residential landscape embedded within a broader ecological and social framework. The goal was to enhance quality of life while addressing climate change, biodiversity loss, and the housing crisis. Working collaboratively during the site analysis phase, students explored themes such as landscape character, inclusivity, connectivity and health, building a robust knowledge base that informed layered and strategic design proposals.

Balancing local context with global challenges, students developed complex masterplans and refined key areas to demonstrate both technical skill and a clear vision for sustainable, integrated communities. The final projects reflected individual agendas rooted in the reconciliation of social and ecological priorities.

We extend special thanks to the charity The Welcome and their team, Knutsford's community café and support centre, who generously hosted our MLA1 students and shared invaluable insights into the strengths and opportunities existing within the local community.

To complete the unit, MLA students collaborated with Master of Architecture Year 1, MA Architecture and Adaptive Reuse, and BA(Hons) Architecture years 1 and 2, working together on a range of MSA Live projects (hyperlink). These initiatives engaged external partners to generate social impact and deliver meaningful benefits to communities across Greater Manchester.

Humanities

Landscape Studies 1a

Landscape Studies 1a

This post-graduate introductory course and lecture series unsettles the relationship between ‘us’ and land (landscape) by making legible what lays outside the normative registers of the architectures as a set of ‘secular’ disciplines. Turning away from historically privileged forms of representation in the architectures, (the visual, the plan, the detail) this course instead attunes to the affective and sensory domains to foreground language (as more than words) and land as interrelated matters that undergird our political, social, and aesthetic lives and practices.

We will be turning to (and unlearning) the vocabularies and binaries which, essentially, constitute who ‘we’ are as practitioners/students/academics. We take seriously the stance that there is generative agency in transgressing the disciplinary (and other) divides and as such we first turn to a wide range of texts (in all their forms: as music, literary works, academic texts, poetry, soundscapes, and film) and will read widely from across postcolonial theory, the decolonial conversation, critical landscape studies, history, political ecology and philosophy. We will, then, aim to regenerate a collective alternative, polyphonic, and situated dictionary of land relations by writing with/to/from the texts we read, the sites and people we encounter in conversation, and the worlds we inhabit. Some of the keywords interrogated include: Dis/Ability, Repair, Justice, Ecology, Climate, Ownership, Public, Migration, Participation, Land, Belonging, Memory, and Home.

Landscape Studies 1b

Landscape Studies 1b

Sustainable Urban Futures is a central pillar of our broader strategy on creating climate literate landscape architecture graduates. The module encourages students to develop their critical thinking on a range of issues relating to climate breakdown and biodiversity loss. Students cover debates including the role of technological change vis-à-vis human behaviour, the interconnectedness of humans with other species, insights from indigenous knowledge, and how to advocate on behalf of the climate. We welcomed guest lecturer Professor Luca Csepely-Knorr (University of Liverpool) who discussed ‘Context, precedent, antithesis: the role of nature in architecture’. The course draws on literature from a variety of disciplines to help students understand the importance of developing a theoretically informed positions when addressing the climate emergency. Central to the course is an appreciation of the complex social, environmental, and economic contexts within which the built environment disciplines operate, and how this translates into an ethical and moral responsibility towards engaging with the climate emergency.

Technology

Landscape Studies 2a

Landscape Studies 2a (Technology)

Landscape Studies 2a Module is designed to introduce the MLA 1 students to the basic characteristics/ applications of a range of materials (both inert and living) and processes of relevance to the discipline of landscape architecture. Through a series of structured explorations, the students developed an awareness of the technological aspects of landscape architecture including characteristics of site conditions, landscape grading, detailing of hardscapes and comprehensive planting knowledge, life-cycle analysis of materials and the application of this knowledge in the design process.

The tutors and the guest speakers provided contextual knowledge scaffolded with the series of live case studies, landscape construction site visits giving further insights into the design decisions and material choices, and the wide range of considerations which are imperative for a comprehensive understanding of landscape technologies. This year the students visited the All Saints Park Public Realm, the recently inaugurated MMU Dalton Building Landscape, the Glade of Light Memorial Garden and the Symphony Park-Circle Square, Manchester.

Landscape Studies 2b

Landscape Studies 2b (Technology)

In Landscape Studies 2b, students built on the foundational knowledge from the previous semester by exploring urban ecological issues and their connection to landscape architecture. This unit provided an in-depth look at emerging policies, initiatives, and strategies in the field.

Students gained the skills to create technical construction documents, develop landscape specifications that meet code requirements, and draft scale-appropriate construction drawings for various design details. By understanding the technical aspects of complex built landscapes, students were prepared to apply this knowledge in their studio projects. Through material studies, they further honed their skills and learned to create alternative design plans for areas within their Landscape Atelier 1A projects.

The curriculum also emphasized the importance of understanding the ecology, conservation, and management of different plant species, as well as how to use them effectively in design. A study visit to Mayfield Park gave students the opportunity to observe planting techniques in a real-world context. This holistic approach equipped students with the skills needed to balance ecological considerations with landscape architecture, fostering a deeper understanding of sustainable design practices.