DesignIntelligence Releases Report on America's Best Architecture and Design Schools
Expanded section on landscape architecture includes rankings by specialty area and region, as well as an essay by ASLA President Pat Caughey, FASLA, on the state of the profession.

DesignIntelligence, the journal of the Design Futures Council, has once again released its annual list of the top graduate and undergraduate programs in architecture and design. This year’s list, as in past years, is sure to stir up some healthy debate among landscape architecture professionals and educators but should be noted for its expanded coverage of the landscape architecture profession. In addition to the typical national ranking of graduate and undergraduate programs, the DesignIntelligence report includes regional rankings of undergraduate and graduate programs, as well as a “skill assessment ranking” covering several specialty areas, including design, analysis and planning, construction methods and materials, computer applications, research and theory, security design principles, and sustainable design practices and principles. DesignIntelligence also includes an essay by ASLA President Pat Caughey, FASLA, noting the growth of the profession, a listing of the educators of the year, and a look at how well prepared current graduates are to take on what is perhaps the profession’s most pressing need—sustainable design.

The top schools
Whenever one of these lists is released, the two questions on everyone’s mind are who’s number one and how was the list compiled? Taking the second part first, DesignIntelligence says the study was conducted in 2006, targeting professionals at leading U.S. landscape architecture firms as well as those who work in the public sector. The study “captured these organizations’ experience with landscape architecture graduates during the past five years, asking respondents to indicate which schools have produced the best-prepared graduates. Participants were required to be directly involved in the hiring and performance of graduates.”

As for which schools nabbed the top spots, Design Intelligence rates Louisiana State University and Pennsylvania State University as the top undergraduate schools and Harvard University as the top graduate school. As noted above, the study also includes regional rankings as well as rankings within practice specialty. The magazine also names eight landscape architecture educators of the year, including, in alphabetical order, Malcolm Cairns, FASLA, Ball State University; George Curry, FASLA, College of Environmental Science, State University of New York; and Dennis Day, FASLA, Kansas State University; among others.

Prepared for sustainability?
One of the more interesting portions of the study was the magazine’s peek into sustainability. DesignIntelligence asked each firm if its students are “graduating with an understanding of biology, biodiversity, and environmental degradation and prepared to address these issues in real-world applications.” Of those responding, 73 percent said graduating students have an “adequate” understanding of these issues, while only 6 percent have a very adequate grasp of these concepts. Surprisingly, almost a quarter—21 percent of respondents—said that students have “very little” understanding of these concepts. Further, a mere 52 percent of responding firms said they were “benefiting from an infusion of new ideas about sustainability from recent-graduate new hires.”

This merely scratches the surface of the report, however, which contains more information on landscape architecture than in past years. The full report—which also covers architecture, industrial design, and interior design—is available for purchase through DesignIntelligence, either as a PDF download ($29.95) or in a hard copy ($39.95).