This course provides an overview of landscape architecture as a practice, a profession and an academic discipline in its own right and in relation to other built environment disciplines. It includes the study of contemporary landscape architecture as a design field and creative force in shaping the built environment and addressing issues relevant to the environment and sustainable development. It also provides an introduction to the art and technique of ‘reading’ the urban landscape and developing a landscape design vocabulary, and to basic library research and essay writing approaches related to built environment design topics