ABB243 Landscape Design 5: Design and Documentation

Unit Outline: Semester 1 2025, Gardens Point, Internal

Overview

This third-year landscape design unit combines both design and advanced technical knowledge and skills, building on knowledge and skills developed in your previous design and technology units. This unit guides you through a high resolution design exploration to the development of a landscape architecture-specific documentation set commensurate to those produced in the profession for landscape construction contractors and other consultants. It encourages you to develop a greater level of skill in design resolution at a range of spatial scales and independent application of technical landscape design specificity, supporting your ongoing landscape design learning and preparing you for final year design studios and professional practice after graduation. 

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this unit you will be able to:

1. Discuss and employ sustainable creative, theoretical, and technical design principles and processes within a specific landscape system.
2. Critically analyse complex design briefs, problems, or scenarios and critically and creatively apply relevant design exploration processes, theoretical, technological, site and cultural knowledge.
3. Understand the role of technical documentation in landscape design and employ professional standard technical documentation skills to communicate landscape design projects, processes, and ideas to construction contractors and other consultants.
4. Understand and apply the holistic design process and implementation in response to range of scales, contexts, and design scenarios.

Content

Learning Approaches

This unit engages you in your learning through: 

• Individual knowledge and skills development, and problem-based learning through a sustained project testing and applying advanced level knowledge of landscape design technology and construction principles;  
• Individual learning through associated research tasks and application of theoretical knowledge;  
• Assessment tasks, lectures, class activities and self-directed work are designed to consolidate your understanding and application of the principles and processes of landscape design, technology, and construction.  

Both content and organisation are designed for you to assess your progress in the unit and the course and for you to gather evidence of meeting unit and course outcomes. 

Feedback on Learning and Assessment

Feedback on Learning and Assessment Feedback in this unit is provided to you in the following ways: 

• Formative feedback will be given in class by staff at key times to assist with the development of your understanding and completion of your assessment tasks. This will occur mostly through face-to-face discussions, workshops, and teaching activities.  
• Summative written feedback will be given on each assessment task through relevant standards based criterion referenced evaluation sheets issued with the assignments. 

Assessment

Overview

Assessment will be based entirely on a semester-long project broken into two assessments designed to enable continuity in design exploration. Your body of work will be assessed for design rigour and resolution, awareness of the project context, technical competence, and demonstration of self-directed research. 

Unit Grading Scheme

7- point scale

Assessment Tasks

Assessment: Site and Conceptual Design

You will, in small groups and/or individually in class work on a design investigation of a selected topic and studio theme. You will individually analyse a selected site or sites, landscape system, carry out research, identify design challenges, analyse relevant precedents, develop a design position, and translate it to a conceptual design at a large scale.  

This assignment is eligible for the 48-hour late submission period and assignment extensions.

Assessment: Design and Documentation

Continuing with the conceptual design developed in assessment 1, you will develop a highly resolved design of a selected part of the project. You will demonstrate an understanding of the context/Country, translation of a design position to a site scale detailed design with resolved spatial understanding and tectonics. You will further develop the design into a landscape architecture specific documentation set and specification, including set out plans, extents of works, grading plan, planting plan, materials and finishes plan, site management plan and preliminary cost estimation.  

This assignment is eligible for the 48-hour late submission period and assignment extensions.

Academic Integrity

Academic integrity is a commitment to undertaking academic work and assessment in a manner that is ethical, fair, honest, respectful and accountable.

The Academic Integrity Policy sets out the range of conduct that can be a failure to maintain the standards of academic integrity. This includes, cheating in exams, plagiarism, self-plagiarism, collusion and contract cheating. It also includes providing fraudulent or altered documentation in support of an academic concession application, for example an assignment extension or a deferred exam.

You are encouraged to make use of QUT’s learning support services, resources and tools to assure the academic integrity of your assessment. This includes the use of text matching software that may be available to assist with self-assessing your academic integrity as part of the assessment submission process.

Breaching QUT’s Academic Integrity Policy or engaging in conduct that may defeat or compromise the purpose of assessment can lead to a finding of student misconduct (Code of Conduct – Student) and result in the imposition of penalties under the Management of Student Misconduct Policy, ranging from a grade reduction to exclusion from QUT.

Requirements to Study

Requirements

All students and staff are required to complete the FoE General Health and Safety Induction course, for access to campus buildings and facilities. This must be completed online.

Resources

Risk Assessment Statement

All commencing Faculty of Engineering students are required to complete the Mandatory Safety Induction

There are no extraordinary risks associated with the classroom/lecture activities in this unit.

The unit may require students to participate in field trips, both of a self-guided nature and sometimes organised trips overseen by staff. A risk assessment for the former has identified only low impact risks. A risk assessment will be conducted before any organised field trips. The students and staff will be provided with relevant safety guidelines before any field trip and be required to obey all these and directions given while attending field trips.

Course Learning Outcomes

AB01 Bachelor of Built Environment (Honours)

1. Apply theoretical, practical and cultural knowledge and skills across a range of disciplines and specialist knowledge and skills in one built environment area.
   Relates to: ULO1, ULO2, ULO3, ULO4, Site and Conceptual Design, Design and Documentation
2. Design and critically evaluate sustainable and creative solutions to social, economic, technological and environmental challenges.
   Relates to: ULO2, ULO4, Site and Conceptual Design, Design and Documentation
3. Communicate knowledge, ideas and creative solutions in diverse modes, for a range of contexts and diverse audiences.
   Relates to: ULO3, Site and Conceptual Design, Design and Documentation
4. Strategically collaborate with diverse stakeholders and communities, including First Nations peoples.
   Relates to: Design and Documentation