Dezeen School Shows: a community-led design for an outdoor learning space is included in Dezeen's latest school show by students at the University of Southern California.

Also included is a project promoting the sustainable restoration of landscapes using cotton and an office space prioritising a tranquil work environment.

University of Southern California

Institution: University of Southern California
School: School of Architecture
Course: Master of Landscape Architecture and Urbanism

School statement:

"Landscapes are the dynamic synthesis of natural systems, sociocultural forces and the physical material of the constructed world.

"The USC Graduate Program in Landscape Architecture and Urbanism (MLA+U) prepares students to be leaders ready to take on challenges of climate change and environmental injustice through the design and planning of landscapes across scales.

"Landscape architecture is a broad field that encompasses the design of a complex range of environments outside our buildings.

"Our program is focused on the public realm, spanning scales of impact from site design to urban design and infrastructure to territorial responses to climate stress that impact our immediate region and around the globe.

"With access to one of the most culturally and environmentally diverse geographies in the world – a biodiversity hotspot within an hour's drive from the Pacific Ocean, the San Gabriel Mountains and the western edge of the Sonoran and Mojave Deserts – Southern California offers a robust laboratory from which to learn, while offering applications all over the globe.

"The program has formalised its priority areas in environmental, social and climate justice through the Landscape Justice Initiative.

"The initiative strengthens the program's standing commitment to applied research and practice in communities that design has not historically reached.

"It includes Test Plot, a program focused on the future of land care.

"The Landscape Futures Lab offers a rigorous curriculum in biodesign and material experimentation and the Los Angeles River Integrated Design Lab provides a hydraulic modelling facility that engages students first-hand with the complex hydrological pressures of urbanisation today.

"Students graduate from the MLA+U program with a proactive toolkit to address the impacts of climate stress on vulnerable humans, species and natural systems."

Textile Landscapes by Anna Avdalyan

"The project explores the material qualities of cotton as a historically significant non-food crop in the Tulare Lake bed where unsustainable agricultural methods adopted over the years led to the lake's degradation and subsequent water crises.

"It addresses the urgent need for innovative, sustainable solutions.

"Textile Landscapes develops sustainable practices for the restoration of the lake via a circular material ecology approach.

"By examining cotton secondary cellulose and its capacity as a functional filler for biocomposites, a new methodology reimagines the ecological context of cotton cultivation, habitat restoration and water quality infrastructure.

"The project articulates a comprehensive strategy for environmental stewardship at landscape and material levels."

Student: Anna Avdalyan
Course: MLA Third Year Design Research
Tutor: Alison B Hirsch
Email: aavdalya[at]usc.edu

Fallows No More by Viraj Chauhan

"This project proposes a framework strategy to mitigate the adverse effects of large-scale agricultural land fallowing in California's Central Valley, as a result of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SMGA) that limits groundwater depletion.

"Traditional design and advanced technology tools were developed to investigate alternative agricultural practices to maintain local employment and food security.

"Incentives to protect and restore natural systems, replenish groundwater, increase flood capacity and improve crop yields are explored and tools developed to more effectively communicate options to local farmers policymakers."

Student: Viraj Chauhan
Course: MLA Third Year Design Research
Tutor: Alison B Hirsch
Email: vcchauha[at]usc.edu

Allensworth Agricultural Experiment Station by Nina Weithorn

"This project investigates holistic and community-based techniques for food-producing landscapes focused on ecological and social health.

"Waste materials are repurposed to increase food sovereignty in the first community founded, financed and governed by Black Americans.

"Agricultural research in soil revitalisation will restore the town's role as the Tuskegee of the West.

"This student was named the LAF National Olmsted Scholar and will be continuing to work with CBOs on this project."

Student: Nina Weithorn
Course: MLA Third Year Design Research
Tutor: Alison B Hirsch
Email: weithorn[at]usc.edu

Unveiling Metal Marvels and Global Garbage Games by Kavya Gudihal

"Traditional metals, rare earth substances and high-tech metal mining are increasingly creating scarred landscapes, degraded ecologies and tremendous amounts of mining waste across the globe.

"This project explores restoration strategies based on soil remediation, phytoremediation, water reclamation and inventive uses of subterranean voids to transform former wastelands into productive healthy ecologies."

Student: Kavya Gudihal
Course: MLA Year 2 Spring
Tutor: Aroussiak Gabrielian
Email: gudihal[at]usc.edu

Sun Study Thermal Comfort Analysis by Jordan Fucci

"The advanced media course uses Grasshopper and generative AI to build customised tools for site analysis and design.

"Students work through a series of exercises to develop modelling and visualisations to study topography, hydrology and ecological simulations.

"Generative AI is explored as a tool for design thinking.

"The final portion of the course takes GIS-based workflows into visualisations to test design strategies."

Student: Jordan Fucci
Course: Advanced Media and Computation
Tutor: Xun Liu
Email: jordanef[at]usc.edu

Gateway to Payhhuunadu by Eva Malis

"The Owen's Valley is infamous as the place where Los Angeles stole the water needed for a growing city in the early 20th century.

"The diversion of water from the natural rivers, creeks and the lake, along with land grabs and persecution of the native peoples completely changed the ecology of the area and erased the indigenous knowledge and practices of the Paiute and Shoshone people who managed the water and land for hundreds of years.

"The site design creates an immersive experience to tell the multi-faceted story of water in this valley."

Student: Eva Malis
Course: MLA Third Year Fall
Tutor: Robyn Reed
Email: emalis[at]usc.edu

USC Village Sustainable Landscape Design by Yinshan Wang

"The University of Southern California developed the village as a mixed-use housing, retail and student services extension of the university park campus.

"A land banked parcel is currently developed as a natural turf lawn for recreation.

"Students in the planting design course imagined high performance, low water use, native and edible sustainable futures for this open space to serve the campus and surrounding community."

Student: Yinshan Wang
Course: Planting Design
Tutor: Sally Reynolds
Email: yinshanw@usc.edu

Akuutet Learning Nursery – Community-Based Improvements by Adrian Porter, Eva Malis, Nina Weithorn, Joyce Ji and Jeremy Joo

"Students worked directly with community members to identify their priorities for preservation and design interventions.

"They led exercises in mapping and conceptual collage-making to provide participants with a wide range of methods to describe their values and priorities.

"The resulting design included native gardens, outdoor learning areas, picnic areas and bioswales.

"The community requested a locally native plant palette to expand biodiversity and habitat value."

Students: Adrian Porter, Eva Malis, Nina Weithorn, Joyce Ji and Jeremy Joo
Course: Community Design, Preservation and Planning
Tutor: Melissa Guerrero
Emails: weithorn[at]usc.edu, adrianpo[at]usc.edu, emalis[at]usc.edu, joojerem[at]usc.edu and xiaocong[at]usc.edu

Dream Office Mumbai India by Viraj Chauhan

"In the tranquil outskirts of bustling Indian cities like Mumbai and Goa, our esteemed architecture, landscape architecture and urbanism firm is found.

"Here, connectivity to the world through international airports and robust public transport is seamlessly combined with the serenity and leisure of being away from the urban hustle and bustle.

"The firm aims to offer solutions to our clients and operates in many fields, with teams led by professionals with various expertise.

"We seek to enable and envision a change for a better future – better living spaces for our people.

"These images were generated using Midjourney to envision the ideal practice environment for a young, multidisciplinary firm."

Student: Viraj Chauhan
Course: Professional Practice for Landscape Architects
Tutor: Esther Margulies
Email: vcchauha[at]usc.edu

Lungs of the Dominguez Watershed by Mark Reid

"This project explored a landscape framework of nature-based solutions in the form of a civic space to allow the community of Carson to grow, adapt and change.

"The Dominquez watershed and channel have received far less attention than other infrastructural waterways in the Los Angeles region.

"The channelised creek flows through a series of heavily impacted, diversely populated small bedroom communities that, on their own, have little ability to determine a new and more climate resilient future in the lower watershed that is subject to urban flooding."

Student: Mark Reid
Course: MLA Second Year Fall Urbanism
Tutor: Jessica Henson Olin
Email: reidm[at]usc.edu

Partnership content

This school show is a partnership between Dezeen and the University of Southern California. Find out more about Dezeen partnership content here.