Landscape Design Fundamentals

Interested in becoming a landscape designer? Or are you designing/building a home and want to learn how to design the landscape so that they may inform one another and be ecologically-minded? Or do you want to redesign your current landscape to support wildlife, provide edibles, manage stormwater, be resilient, or better align with your values and goals?

Whether you rent, own, are renovating or building a house, or just looking to learn, this course can offer skill development in the assessment and design of a landscape to meet your (or client) goals and create a regenerative space that can be better integrated into local ecological processes. 

In this course, you'll learn

  • Intro to landscape design: ecology, psychology, history
  • How to do a site analysis
  • Fundamental landscape drafting skills
  • Approaches to conceptual planning & design 
  • How to draw a site plan and design details for your own home or other residential site
  • Intro to plant design: natives, edibles, function & beauty! 

Students should come prepared by having a specific site in mind to work on and develop throughout the class or they can use the local example property provided. Gather pictures, building plans, lot maps, and any other maps or information you can find about your site. Also bring in pictures of landscapes that you like or do not like and your reasons why - this can be digital or you can create a physical mood board (collage-like presentation of ideas). 

Category

Land and Community Planning

Competency

Beginner

Credits

  • Sterling College: 2 Continuing Education Units ($260 additional)