Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA)

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Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA)

The Master of Landscape Architecture Program teaches students to design land and land-based practices that advance environmental and social justice in a time of climate and public change.

An image of the New York City Downtown skyline from an urban park with paths surrounded by foliage.

Type: Graduate, MLA
Start Term: Fall Only
Credits: 56 or 85
Duration: 2 or 3 years
Courses: Plan of Study
School and Department: School of Architecture,
Graduate Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Urban Design

Landscape Architecture

Students work on wooden structures that they've installed in the Catskill Forest — Students install work they designed to increase species habitat in the Catskill Forest

Students earning an MLA degree at Pratt are taught to embrace an inclusive approach to design that bridges culture and nature, ecology and policy, living and built environments. With so many challenges at hand, and underfoot, we prioritize collaborative and team-based learning, articulating changes between large scale systems, expansive historical precedents, evolutionary processes, and individual organisms. Landscape Architecture is a discipline, a profession, and a practice that informs the environment at every scale. We celebrate this legacy by imagining global education as a collaboration with the soils, plants and waters that sustain species.

We welcome students from a broad range of backgrounds with a strong interest in environmental studies, geography, botany and ecology.

The Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA) program offers two professional tracks:

3-year, 85-credit, 6 semester, full-time degree intended for students without a design background or previous design education.
2-year, 56-credit, 4 semester, full-time degree intended for students who hold a first professional degree in architecture from an NAAB-accredited program.

Both programs takes place on Pratt’s Brooklyn campus, and require a full time commitment to both land-base and studio-based collaboration. The core curriculum is structured around regional dynamics in the first year and design in the public realm in the second year. Support classes range from field ecology to garden making and the pedagogy is designed to enhance the professional knowledge required for entering the practice of landscape architecture. Our graduates go on to work in design practice, public service, academia and research.

The Master of Landscape Architecture Program received Candidacy status from the Landscape Architectural Accreditation Board (LAAB) in August 2024. We are actively seeking Full-Accreditation status, as we Graduate the first cohort of MLA students. Please see The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) website for more information, or contact the MLA program Academic Director for more information on the process.

We believe that the future of landscape architecture education is found in a combination of studio-based and land-based learning. Studio-based learning is a hands-on approach to project making common to creative disciplines. Our MLA program compliments studio-based learning with land-based learning to strengthen first-hand experience and extend the disciplines ties to research in the sciences. In a time of great disconnection from the living world around us, land-based learning helps overcome the distance from nature growing in our cities, enhancing a deeper relationship with the environment.

The learning outcomes of land-based pedagogy compliment design by enhancing the link between first-hand experience and design experiments, engaging research techniques in biology, ecology, and geology, while evolving student self-reliance in applying both analog and digital datasets. By combining studio and land-based learning, our program helps students demonstrate an understanding of the broader context of design in relation to issues of justice, equity, diversity, and inclusivity.

Our MLA program fosters designers to be ethical, creative, skilled, and imaginative practitioners who are able to navigate the full professional and practical extents of the discipline. As a result, students are taught to develop knowledge and experience in all aspects of the field, including the technical, theoretical, and practical concerns of the discipline of Landscape Architecture at the Master’s level. The following Program-wide learning outcomes resonate across the curriculum.

Students will be able to:

Elaborate on how landscape architecture enhances ecology.
Work collaboratively and independently with various stakeholders.
Advocate for landscape architecture in establishing healthy communities.
Design at scale, ranging from urban parks to regional plans.
Create landscape architectural projects with technological skills.

Take a look at how our courses are linked to land-based experiences

LAR-633: Plant morphology at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden
Students are taught the basics of botany, plant morphology, and horticultural techniques, as well as plants in the context of public space; plants as indicators of societal change; and how plants are adapting to a warmer climate.

STU-601: Habitat studies in the Catskills Forest
The first studio attends to reading landscape patterns at multiple temporal and spatial scales; from the scours of geology, to indigenous land-use and forest migration in relation to manifold species.

LAR-613: Soil sampling at Gerritsen Beach
Research in heavily urbanized sites teaches students site-grading beyond its technical function as a topographic exercise, appreciating the specificity of living soils, from chemistry and composition to porosity, texture, and contamination.

View the MLA Plan of Study

Career Opportunities

student with protective hi-vis gear and hard hat, viewing site

The program aims to enable graduates to enter the profession with a sophisticated portfolio of flexible skills, knowledge and understanding.

Graduates from the MLA program progress to work in design practice and landscape stewardship both nationally and internationally, as well as contributing to academia and aspects of governance of a wide spectrum of landscapes across a broad range of scales.

Our Faculty

As educators, our most important task is to determine how we can create equitable learning for all students, which includes diverse ways of knowing. Our program is supported by colleagues, students, and professional associations that work through civic engagement and respects the traditional and unceded homeland of the Lenape people. In a time of great uncertainty, we are certain that our relationship to the land requires our complete attention. See all Graduate Architecture and Urban Design faculty and administrators.

Rosetta S. Elkin
Academic Director, Landscape Architecture Program; Associate Professor
Mariel Collard
Assistant Professor
Mark Heller
Assistant Professor
Signe Nielsen
Adjunct Professor
Jacob Suissa
Visiting Assistant Professor
Benjamin Goulet-Scott
Visiting Assistant Professor
Bill Logan
Visiting Professor
Melody Stein
Visiting Assistant Professor
Jeffrey Hogrefe
Professor
Ellen Garrett
Visiting Assistant Professor
Marissa Angell
Visiting Assistant Professor
Sanford Kwinter
Professor

Success Stories

Two people walking on a wooden boardwalk through a lush wetland filled with vibrant greenery and autumn foliage. One person gestures toward the landscape, framed by tall trees and a dramatic sky filled with clouds, with the golden light of sunrise casting a warm glow.

Ready for More?

HERE’S HOW TO APPLY	OUR CAMPUS & BEYOND
Join us at Pratt. Learn more about admissions requirements, plan your visit, talk to a counselor, and start your application. Take the next step.	You’ll find yourself at home at Pratt. Learn more about our residence halls, student organizations, athletics, gallery exhibitions, events, the amazing City of New York and our Brooklyn neighborhood communities. Check us out.