landscape architecture & urban planning

Transportation planning education at Texas A&M will be bolstered by the fall 2012 arrival of Wei Li, the Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning’s newest faculty member.

An energy-saving thermostat and high-tech clothing tags that take the guesswork out of washer and dryer settings were among the award-winning ideas hatched by College of Architecture students in a contest sponsored by the Mays Business School’s Center for New Ventures and Entrepreneurship.

Environmental design student teams from Texas A&M swept a national design contest, winning first-, second-, and third-place awards, as well as honorable mention with plans for renovating a skilled nursing facility in Jacksonville, Florida.

A scholarship endowment gradually funded over the last 18 years by 27 community outreach projects undertaken by students in professor Jon Rodiek's Master of Architecture studios at Texas A&M University reached fruition last fall, for the first time providing scholarships totaling $14,000 for eight new MLA students.

Earlier this month, the Maroon Coats, student ambassadors of the Texas A&M Foundation, organized an impromptu “thank you” note-writing session for students to share their gratitude with scholarship benefactors and gift givers who support College of Architecture programs.

Visualization and landscape architecture students will be working with counterparts from numerous other disciplines working on groundbreaking projects made possible by a new interdisciplinary initiative at Texas A&M.

This summer, for the first time, the Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Plannning is offering five undergraduate classes online. Two of the course, URSC 325, Introduction to Geographic Information Systems, and URSC 330, Land Development I, are available only to students pursuing degrees offered by the department.

A College Station area consisting of strip malls and parking lots would become a pedestrian-friendly, mixed-use, downtown core in an award-winning master plan proposed by Master of Landscape Architecture students at Texas A&M.

Transportation planners will find answers to key questions on road project prioritization in a new book co-authored by two members of the Texas A&M Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning faculty.

Professional architects learned how to incorporate evidence-based design into healthcare projects at an April 12-14 “boot camp” sponsored by Texas A&M’s Center for Health Systems and Design.

Next fall, students from a variety of academic programs will collaborate to install and monitor a green roof atop a campus building; an initiative preparing students as leaders in energy conservation, said Bruce Dvorak, an assistant professor of landscape architecture.

On Saturday, April 28, Texas A&M urban planning students are staging the “Urban Plan-It Challenge,” a fun-filled, campuswide fund-raising competition based on the popular “The Amazing Race” television series. Contestants will vie for prizes in a series mental and physical tasks related to challenges confronting the planet.

Oak trees provide greenery and shade at an elementary school and along a farm-to-market road in League City, examples of the civic-mindedness of the late Lynn Gripon ’49, a former Texas A&M University landscape architecture student who passed away in 2000.

Four of the world’s leading “green” experts discussed sustainability, energy and “green” development in a March 6 forum moderated by Jorge Vanegas, dean of Texas A&M’s College of Architecture, at a global real estate convention in Cannes, France.

Expense-cutting strategies and financing advice to help students and parents better afford a college education are outlined in a new book written by first-generation college graduate Ethan Brisby, who is currently pursuing a Master of Science in Land Development degree at Texas A&M.