As part of Studio Outside's commitment to the field of landscape architecture, several Outsiders have been teaching and co-teaching numerous studios and courses at our local institutions - University of Texas at Arlington and University of Texas at Austin. Working with students and faculty in these Masters of Landscape Architecture programs creates many opportunities for us as professionals that are not always available in our day-to-day work. Through teaching, we have the opportunity to support students, influencing the next generation of landscape architects, develop our own research, test new ideas, and engage in important conversations with a wide array of professionals and subject matter experts.
Studio Teaching
This past spring, Outsiders Gwendolyn Cohen, Isaac Cohen, Matt Nicolette, and Tary Arterburn worked with Associate Professor Hope Hasbrouck to teach Landscape Studio IV at UT Austin. This comprehensive design studio focused on an on-structure deck park across I-10 in El Paso. The students completed three phases of the project throughout the semester: Research and Analysis, Schematic Design, and Design Development. Working through the entire design process, they create a DD level document set for the first time. In addition to the challenges of ZOOM studio and the inability to do a site visit, the students were challenged to connect research and conceptual ideas to a construction detail – solving grading challenges, material connections, and programmatic requirements while consistently pushing towards a big conceptual idea.
"Teaching was a great experience to engage with the students and facilitate the synthesis of their diverse, creative concepts into a design development set. It was inspiring to see how each student thought through the problem and navigated the design parameters each in their own unique way, bringing the set together under tight deadlines."
- Matt Nicolette
Working with this studio allowed us to share our professional practice, individual technical knowledge, and design process. This multi-scale/process thinking greatly benefited from working with the design studio that led to many fruitful conversations both with students and with each other. It was exciting to work with the students through the many challenges of a comprehensive design and see the inspiring work that they produced.
In addition to Studio IV, Gwen and Isaac also had the opportunity to work with students remotely to collaborate with Assistant Professor Maggie Hansen on an Advanced Design Studio – Prairie Time: Growing Dallas's Green Quilt. This studio speculated on the potential of centering human actions of caretaking, alongside the dynamics of landscape materials and site, toward more just and more ecologically rich futures. The focus for the semester was on the urban fabric of Dallas and its position within the Blackland Prairie ecoregion. As a part of the Green New Deal Superstudio, it explored the potential to address the core goals of jobs, justice, and decarbonization while engaging the region's specific context.
The Studio Asked:
How might we envision practices that support other relationships with the land and with each other?
How might caring for urban prairies build a caring city?
As returning guest critics, Gwen and Isaac worked with the students every other Friday to share local knowledge and explored how their ideas might hit the ground in Dallas. This work continues the questions that were asked in 2019 while co-teaching a studio with Assistant Professor Dr. Joowon Im at the University of Texas at Arlington, titled The Prairie's Yield. Living and working in the Blackland Prairie, we are deeply interested in what we can learn from our local ecology, one of the most endangered ecoregions in the United States.
Holistically, we have been thinking about how teaching and asking these critical questions can advance our professional projects. We are always applying new learning and technology, and teaching is one avenue to advancing our knowledge.
Engaging with students over Zoom.
Over the last three years, diving deeply into the history, processes, and importance of the often-misunderstood Tallgrass prairie has been an incredible journey. When the vast majority of residents within the Blackland Prairie have never experienced a remnant prairie and none of us have experienced the expanse of seemingly endless grasslands that once defined this region – How can we design our city with the elements, functions, and experience of the prairie instead of fighting against it? Through this teaching, we discovered that landscape architecture is not the only place these conversations are happening.
Beyond the Studio
This spring, we connected with artists Tamara Johnson and Trey Burns, who run the local Sweet Pass Sculpture Park and launched the Sweet Pass Sculpture School in 2021, "which focuses on site-responsiveness, the speculative, and reflecting connections to the surrounding region and communities" and is focusing on the Texas Blackland Prairie. "SPSS will guide participants on a broad survey of this lost prairie while exploring the embedded histories, hidden natures, and infrastructures in the region. Like decoding stratum in sedimentary rocks, we will examine how the past has shaped the city's construction and look at the resulting impact upon the ecology."
Gwen, Isaac, and Maggie had the opportunity to lead the participants of the Sculpture School for one day through Dallas, visiting three sites – the remnant Frankford Prairie, the Native Texas Park at the George W. Bush Presidential Library, and the 12 Hills Nature Center. We examined these "prairies," asking what made them prairies from plants to processes to people. For one day of the two-week residency, we are excited to see how the artists will respond to what they learned here in Dallas and how they push us to see the prairie differently.
Prairie Tour
In the Spring of 2020 and 2021, Outsider Matt Nicolette taught Professional Practice at the University of Texas at Arlington. This class allowed students to learn about how projects are conceptualized, designed, built, and maintained and what it is like to work as a professional landscape architect. Outsiders Lisa Casey and Emilee Voigt joined as guest lecturers to share their experiences as a project manager and an entry-level designer, respectively. Lisa spoke to the experience and contributions of women in the profession.
These are only a sampling of the ways that Studio Outside engages with students and university programs. We look forward to continuing to give guest lectures, sit on reviews, mentor students, and serve our alma maters. In the last several years, we have had the opportunity to engage with UT Austin, UT Arlington, Iowa State, Kansas State, University of Oregon, LSU, Ohio State, UVA, Texas Tech, and Texas A&M in many capacities.
We look forward to continuing to push landscape architecture forward in ways that inspire both our clients and the future leaders of our field.
