The State of Florida, a microcosm of global concerns, faces complex challenges including urbanization, an aging population, social justice, tourism, climate change, and sea-level rise, and degradation of biodiversity and ecosystem services. The School of Landscape Architecture and Planning is strategically situated to address such issues through research, outreach, collaborations, and partnerships with other departments, colleges, universities, agencies, and non-governmental organizations. We work at a range of scales—site, city and region, and contexts – both domestic and international. Our research and community outreach themes and focus areas (capabilities) are:
- Design thinking (DESIGN): pedagogical research, multidisciplinary learning, and identifying new methods of enhancing and understanding the creative design process.
- Socio-cultural, economic, and human needs (PEOPLE): health and the built environment, economic development, cultural heritage, community advocacy, aging, social justice, and housing policy.
- Adaptive policy, planning and design (RESILIENCY): the elements within the built and natural environments that combine to create sustainable and resilient communities and landscapes. These include the design of built and green infrastructure, water resource planning, landscape performance research, and design and planning for climate change.
- Land use, water, infrastructure, and resource interactions (LAND USE AND WATER): relationships between transportation and land use, rural planning, environmental and regional planning, resource-based tourism, impact assessment, low impact design, and water resource planning.
- Geospatial analysis and modeling (TECHNOLOGY): an important tool for much of the research conducted in the School of Landscape Architecture and Planning; with a focus on conducting research specifically advancing geospatial analysis and modeling methods and technologies, this includes work focused on GIS-based assessment and design methods, visualization, 3-D modeling, big data analysis and travel behavior, innovative technology, and decision support tools.