The Landscape Architecture Dissertation Project runs over the second semester with the development of a research proposal starting in the first semester. The project is individual in the choice of the project scenario exploration, yet the method of guidance and interrogation is reliant upon shared learning and group discussions.

 

As the making of interventions is understood within this studio to be an integrated reiterative process, the relationship between conceptual thinking, strategies, detail design and site resolutions are seamless and interdependent. Technology explorations were integrated within the various design projects, and artefacts generated within the structured studio tasks were interrogated from the abstract, conceptual through to the implications for the making of landscapes. The first phase in the dedicated dissertation studio assists the students in shifting their mode of engagement with their topic from writing (explored in the research proposal), to visual, spatial and material thinking.  During the first few weeks all thesis students were required to engage in an explorative exercise in which we endeavoured to explore the process embedded within their enquiries. These informed their Manifestos which underpin and support their explorations. 

 

As designers, we each bring our concerns, queries, passions, agendas, and skills to the inquiry we table. The way we enter and the lens through which we perceive and interrogate the hypothesis and inquiry guides and informs the process of designing and making. This resulted in a rethinking of the entry process into the thesis, and a restructuring of the threshold of entry. To contextualise and personalise their understanding of the sites of study, each student identified an ‘active participant’ within their sites and were required to interrogate and illustrate a day in their life. Analysis of the everyday worlds contributed to the development of the project briefs. 

 

Following the initiating phase the projects were then developed with more individual engagement with the supervisors, and the specific nature of inquiry each project embodies gets refined and adjusted. The process this year was directly influenced by the early development of a material / making exploration starting with a detail developed in the early process explorations. This detail was then developed into a section and ultimately into a plan representing a portion of the developing project.  We were honoured to be joined by Professor Julian Raxworthy at the stage of conception sections explorations and Professor Jeremy Foster during the mock review. 

 

We were fortunate to have landscape architects Associate Professor Gareth Doherty from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Dr Finzi Saidi from University of Johannesburg, Abel Mosweu from Cape Peninsula University of Technology, and Ancunel Steyn of the City of Cape Town as external examiners.