Master of Landscape Architecture
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You can define a new terrain
The Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA) is a first professional three-year, course-based graduate degree accredited by Landscape Architecture Accreditation Council (LAAC) of the Canadian Society of Landscape Architects (CSLA).
The School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape (SAPL) at the University of Calgary offers Alberta’s only professionally accredited Landscape Architecture degree. The program is designed to engage with the critical sociocultural and ecological challenges of place-making, climate change, and resilience.
SAPL delivers a distinctly different design school experience with an interdisciplinary, design-based philosophy, and an entrepreneurial mindset.
Students are trained as leaders in becoming catalysts for positive local and global change.
Have more questions about the program? Chat with our MLA Unibuddy student!
MLA Curriculum
The Master of Landscape Architecture is a first professional course-based graduate degree accredited by Landscape Architectural Accreditation Council (LAAC) of the Canadian Society of Landscape Architects (CSLA). SAPL offers Alberta’s only professionally accredited Landscape Architecture degree.
The program is structured around a sequence of core design studios, technology courses, and design theory and methods courses.
Program features
The Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA) is designed to engage with the critical sociocultural and ecological challenges of place-making, climate change, and resilience. Students are trained as leaders in becoming catalysts for positive local and global change. The program is structured around a sequence of core design studios, technology courses, and design theory and methods courses.
Funding and Awards
Accessible education is a University of Calgary hallmark. Master of Landscape Architecture graduate students have a wide range of opportunities to receive thousands of dollars in scholarships and awards to lighten the load. It all adds up to a solid foundation for success. SAPL and the Faculty of Graduate Studies support different funding opportunities and awards.
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List of MLA Program-Nominated Awards
Donor funded and administered through UofC FGS; Canadian dollar amount.
- Charles E. & Walton Kendrew Scholarship ($6,500)
- Margaret (Peg) Brown Award in Ecological Design ($2,900)
- Bill Ross Scholarship ($1,500)
- Robert G. Kellaway, Mervyn G. Graves, C.
- Sheldon Buckles, Gordon J. Cummings Scholarship ($1,400)
- Ronald M. McCaw Memorial Graduate Scholarship in Environmental Design ($1,000)
- SAPL Dean’s Circle 50th Anniversary Scholarship ($1,500)
- Brian Allsopp Graduate Award in Architecture ($2,000)
- Brian R Sinclair Graduate Scholarship in Environmental Design ($3,600)
- SAPL Alumni Scholarship ($3,100)
- SAPL Dean’s Advisory Council Entrance Scholarship ($1,400)
- Solar Energy Society of Canada Inc (SESCI) ‘84 Scholarship ($1,000)
- Kenneth MacLean Glazier Graduate Scholarship ($900)
- Dean William T Perks and Patricia C Bond Scholarship in Sustainable Design ($1,200)
- Chancellor Cuthbertson Environmental Design Graduate Entrance Scholarship ($10,000)
- Canadian Environmental Graduate Scholarship ($1,900)
- Allan H Bill Memorial Scholarship ($1,300)
- Mary-Ellen M. Tyler Travel Award in Master of Landscape Architecture ($2,000)
- SAPL Gold Medal Governor General’s Gold Medal
Canadian dollar amount.
- LACF U of C Scholarship ($1,000) • SALA Academic Award ($1,500)
- CELA Fountain Scholar ($2,000)
- CSLA Student Award of Excellence ($1,000)
- LACF U of C Canadian Landscape Charter Scholarship ($3,000)
- Maglin – LACF Scholarship ($5,000)
- LAF Scholarships
- LAF Olmsted Scholar nomination
Canadian dollar amount.
- SAPL Entrance Scholarships ($1,000- 5,000)
SAPL Continuing Scholarships ($1,000-2,000)
Alumni features
Jackson Brandt (MLA'19) - Landscape architecture grad meets challenge to design fire suppression for hard-hit Waterton area. His capstone project combines natural firebreak with walk-in campground.
Karly Do’s hiking trip leads to UCalgary’s School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape.
Landscape Architecture as a Career
Landscape architects work in private practice, as well as in larger interdisciplinary consulting firms, and different levels of government (municipal, provincial, federal). Landscape architects have a range of practice expertise in technology and construction, plants, soil, irrigation, public space and street design, recreational amenities, climate change adaptation, low impact development, project management, habitat and park.
Message from the Associate Dean (Landscape Architecture)
The Master of Landscape Architecture in the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape is the newest Landscape Architecture professional degree program in Canada. Our first class was admitted in 2015 and accredited three years later in 2018 by the Canadian Society of Landscape Architects with our first graduates. The Calgary and Southern Alberta region provides a living laboratory for exploring a rich glacial history of evolving land forms and processes. Biologically diverse ecological subregions from prairie to badlands, to parkland to foothills to Mountains are all within easy access from Calgary.
The profession of Landscape Architecture is a growing field of practice that includes a wide range of areas at different scales from residential to regional including urban design, public spaces, parks and recreation, climate change adaptation, green infrastructure, low impact development, water resources management, transportation, spatial land use design, and habitat restoration. As a relatively new Canadian MLA program, and currently the only one in Alberta, our program is designed to address contemporary areas of emerging practice in Landscape Architecture which focus on the critical ecological, social, and cultural challenges of placemaking and sustaining biological life support systems in urban regions and regional environments.
Our MLA Program has quickly achieved recognition for providing a quality professional education experience in Landscape Architecture. We look forward to answering any questions you may have about our program or admission requirements admissions@sapl.ucalgary.ca.
Enrica Dall'Ara, Interim Associate Dean, Academic (Planning and Landscape Architecture)
In a Good Way
The University of Calgary, located in the heart of Southern Alberta, both acknowledges and pays tribute to the traditional territories of the peoples of Treaty 7, which include the Blackfoot Confederacy (comprised of the Siksika, the Piikani, and the Kainai First Nations), the Tsuut’ina First Nation, and the Stoney Nakoda (including Chiniki, Bearspaw, and Goodstoney First Nations). The City of Calgary is also home to the Métis Nation of Alberta (Districts 5 and 6).
The University of Calgary is situated on land Northwest of where the Bow River meets the Elbow River, a site traditionally known as Moh’kins’tsis to the Blackfoot, Wîchîspa to the Stoney Nakoda, and Guts’ists’i to the Tsuut’ina.
On this land and in this place we strive to learn together, walk together, and grow together “in a good way.”