UMass Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning

UMass Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning Our Mission...Through cutting edge research and teaching in design and planning, we explore what it In 1903, LARP was founded by Frank A.

Waugh as an undergraduate program in Landscape Gardening, the second such program in the United States. In 1930, the original Bachelor of Science in Landscape Gardening was changed to a Bachelor of Science in Landscape Architecture. The MLA was initiated in 1915 as a Master's in Landscape Gardening, changed three years later to a Master's in Landscape Architecture. Our Associate's in Landscape Con

tracting (AS), part of the Stockbridge School of Agriculture, was initiated in 1923. In 1968 the Master's in Regional Planning (MRP) was initiated. in 1971, the name of the Department was changed to Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning to reflect our larger mission. Doctorate in Regional Planning (PhD) was approved in 1988, and the first students were admitted in 1989. The MLA, MRP, and BSLA are all professionally accredited degrees.

Missing our graduates already! Go change the world, Class of 2026.☀💚
06/09/2026

Missing our graduates already! Go change the world, Class of 2026.☀💚

🎤🌎Carolina Aragón is giving a lightning talk 's Future Now: Taking Action for People + Planet by Design summit in Detroi...
06/04/2026

🎤🌎Carolina Aragón is giving a lightning talk 's Future Now: Taking Action for People + Planet by Design summit in Detroit today!

Carolina, associate professor at UMass LARP and founder of Art for Public Good, will present a portfolio of public art installations across Massachusetts, which have been designed to serve as future and real-time visualization of local challenges such as flooding and extreme heat.

Carolina's works demonstrate how art and landscape architecture can merge to bridge the vast communication gaps around climate adaptation, fostering engagement across all levels of society.

See the talk, "Art as Preview: Installations for Hopeful Adaptation," at 3:40 pm!

05/29/2026

📣Boston launched its 2030 Climate Action Plan to protect neighborhoods from climate change. See how our students have inspired new conversations about climate resilience for the North End and West End with the help of students from the Eliot School!

☀️Earlier this month, our Beloved Places Senior Landscape Architecture studio and the Eliot School came together at the Hub on Causeway to present innovative design solutions to coastal flooding, extreme heat, and other climate challenges facing Boston's communities. Guests included representatives from the West End Civic Association, the US Army Corps of Engineers, the Boston Science Museum, and other organizations working to build a more resilient city.

Special thanks to Envision Resilience for making these efforts possible. And to our Class of 2026, we can't wait to see the change you will lead in the world!🌎

05/19/2026

Julia Opel's Master of Regional Planning project explored how the Massachusetts Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness program builds capacity for planners and municipal staff, as part of its focus on expansive community engagement for climate adaptation.🔍🌎

☀️Julia worked in collaboration with Shannon Callaham, a PhD candidate in the UMass Amherst Department of Environmental Conservation, who has been researching the program!

This concludes our master's thesis spotlights! Congrats to all our graduating master's students!👏

🌲MLA '26 grad, Nina Fritsch, spent the year studying urban forests! Her master's thesis creatively linked nurseries to t...
05/18/2026

🌲MLA '26 grad, Nina Fritsch, spent the year studying urban forests! Her master's thesis creatively linked nurseries to the urban forest of Rochester, NY as a case study for exploring the historic and contemporary cultural drivers of biodiversity in urban forests.

🎤This spring, Nina presented her thesis at the 2026 CELA Conference in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the Contemporary Nature: Tending the Garden Symposium at Mass MOCA!

🎖We're also thrilled to share that Nina received an ASLA Merit Award in recognition of her outstanding academic achievement. Congrats Nina!

05/15/2026

❄️🐧How can planning and architecture work together to address spatial uncertainty in Antarctica? Krashang Giri Goswami's MRP/MArch thesis proposes a way of linking these disciplines to promote collaboration and adapation for the people who occupy Antarctica's rapidly changing Fildes Peninsula.

🔍Using scenario planning, Krash tested how spatial pressures on the peninsula might change across different futures and where the current governance framework begins to strain. He then translated those findings into a modular architectural system built around a shared spine, fixed nodes, and detachable modules, so that infrastructure can be reversible, coordinated, and responsive rather than fixed, fragmented, and permanent.

Krash recently present his thesis at CriticalMASS 2026 Symposium at UNC Charlotte! Great work, Krash!🎉

05/14/2026

For her master's project, Eileen Helck, MLA '26, explored the many ways that insects are considered in design projects, showing how the fields of entomology and landscape architecture truly bee-long together.🐝🦋🐞

Congrats Eileen!🎉

✨✏️For her master's project, Liz Helmin, MLA/MDes '26, developed and produced a magazine about collective memory, titled...
05/12/2026

✨✏️For her master's project, Liz Helmin, MLA/MDes '26, developed and produced a magazine about collective memory, titled "CONFER: Public Perceptions of Memorial Landscapes."

📑This 140-page magazine analyzes literature, academic research, interviews with designers, and personal reflections, and culminates these stories into a graphic collection that interrogates how and why the general public responds to memorial landscapes.

📸Using graphic narratives, such as photography and digital media, CONFER guides readers through tough conversations about grief, asking them to confront difficult topics and bring them to light in a way that softens, transforms, and legitimizes the pain to exist in a shared environment.

Like complex sites shaped by history, trauma, and layered social narratives, CONFER's chapters do not end on the final page. Rather, the narratives represent the same intervention, the same participation, and the same social action that memorial sites are doing.

Learn more about CONFER and Liz's other works at https://eghlandarch.myportfolio.com/masters-thesis-zine

05/11/2026

🎙️Follow along week to hear LARP students talk about their master’s projects! Today, Master of Regional Planning candidate, Marcelina Joao, shares how she’s been researching rural economic development in Angola. Congrats to Marcelina and all our graduating master’s students!🎉

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