University of Idaho 1998 General Catalog Department of Landscape Architecture Stephen R. Drown, Dept. Gary Austin, Stephen R. Drown, James J. Kuska, Toru Otawa.
Landscape architecture is an environmental design and planning profession.
It is the art and science of integrating human activities with the natural and urban environment. The profession's objective is to minimize the impact of humans on the natural processes while providing for their physical and psychological needs through design. As a profession, landscape architecture encompasses certain design skills that enable it to resolve conflicts that arise in the complex interrelationships of physical, economic, political, and social activities of people and their use of the environment. This requires an understanding of the natural systems and visual pattern of the land, necessitating courses in the natural sciences, such as biology, geology, and soils. In order to understand the nature of the physical, psychological, and social characteristics of mankind, studies in the behavioral and social sciences are extremely important in adapting development to the land.