What is it like to be a landscape architecture student at UTS?

What do you study in a Landscape Architecture degree?

At UTS, the Bachelor of Landscape Architecture (Honours) combines creative design with ecology, infrastructure, construction and professional communication. Students undertake intensive studio-based learning, gaining practical experience through site visits, field trips, travelling studios and international study opportunities.

Compared to other design disciplines, landscape architecture asks students to work with living, evolving systems rather than finished objects. For Noah, this means thinking about: 

• Time: how plants grow, species move and environments change over 5, 10 or 100 years.  
• Movement: how people experience a site through pathways, sequences and transitions between spaces.  
• Relationships: how human needs connect with ecological and more-than-human life. 

“It's also changed how I experience places generally,” he says.

“I don't think I can walk into somewhere as ‘just a place’ anymore. Every landscape is a bit like a never-ending book.” 

Why choose to study landscape architecture? 

Landscape architecture brings together design, nature, people and place to shape environments that are functional, resilient and connected to the communities that use them. 

For Noah, landscape architecture sits between two things he has always been drawn to: the built environment and the outdoors.

“I've always loved built form, but just as much, I love being outdoors – surfing, 4WDing and fishing. Landscape Architecture felt like the natural fit because it sits between the built and natural world,” he says.

Growing up, Noah understood Country as a connected system of people, water, plants, animals, culture and story. At UTS, this understanding has continued to shape how he approaches design.

“At UTS, I've also learnt that Country doesn't stop existing because a place has urbanised. No matter how many roads or layers of concrete sit above it, it is still Country underneath.” 

What is a Global Studio like? 

One of the highlights of Noah's studies has been taking part in a UTS Global Studio as part of his degree – a faculty-led, short-term international study experience where students travel overseas to explore design in a different place and context, while earning credit towards their degree.

For Noah, this meant travelling to Paris to explore how landscape architecture can respond to climate change in a dense urban environment.

“One of the biggest lessons from Paris was that in a city already almost completely built, the question isn't always where to build next, but how to adapt what already exists.” 

The studio explored rooftops, waterways and existing buildings as opportunities for climate adaptation, including projects such as Académie du Climat and Roofscapes.

Noah also worked on Floating Paris, a project exploring floating wetlands along the Canal Saint-Martin to improve water quality, create habitat, cool the area and support public life.

The experience showed him how ideas from other cities can offer new ways of thinking about Australia's urban landscapes. 

Where can landscape architecture take you? 

For Noah, his studies are already translating into professional experience.  
Alongside his degree, he works at Arcadia Landscape Architecture as a Landscape Technician and Indigenous Strategist within the First Nations Designing with Country team. His role combines technical landscape architecture work with helping facilitate Designing with Country frameworks and workshops, bringing Indigenous knowledge and contemporary design practice together.

“The biggest thing I've learnt from UTS is to think more deeply about why we are making certain design decisions,” he says.

The experience has allowed Noah to apply what he learns at UTS to real-world projects, while developing his interests in landscape architecture, Indigenous strategy and Designing with Country.

Looking ahead, he wants to continue working across landscape architecture and Indigenous strategy. “I want to help change how the industry thinks about Country,” he says. 

Is landscape architecture right for you?

Landscape architecture could be for you if you're curious about people, nature, cities and how they connect. 

“The degree has changed how I see the world day to day. I don't look at a park, street or piece of land without wondering what's underneath it, how people move through it, where the water goes, what species live there, what happened there before, and how it might change,” says Noah.

His experience shows that studying landscape architecture goes beyond designing outdoor spaces. It's about understanding the relationships between people, place, nature and Country – and using design to help shape healthier landscapes for the future.