Explore the program
The Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA) program at the University of Calgary prepares future landscape architecture professionals and leaders with the knowledge, skills, and critical thinking to address the environmental and societal challenges of our time through innovative design.
We aspire to influence global practices and set new standards for design excellence and social and environmental justice through education and research.
Program Philosophy
The Master of Landscape Architecture program is designed to engage with the critical sociocultural and ecological challenges of place-making, climate change, and resilience.
The program is design studio-based, with an emphasis on urban design, ecological design, regional landscapes and cultural landscapes. Students explore landscape design and planning complexities at different scales, from site to regional. Through core courses, study abroad opportunities and expert-led special topics courses, students examine processes and forms in ecology, urbanization, land use and social dynamics. Students have the opportunity to work with and learn from professionals across different disciplines, including planners, architects, and engineers, and work on projects directly involving communities, local governments and the industry. The Program has built its identity around key principles and educational methods: process and form, design studio pedagogy, interdisciplinarity, sustainability, and real-world problem solving.
Works by student Graham Louwers LAND 670 - Representing the City: Drawing.
Program structure
The Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA) is a first professional graduate degree in landscape architecture accredited by the 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 MLA curriculum incorporates the breadth of the accreditation standards and required competencies. It prepares students for careers in landscape architecture and professional licensure in the provincial and Canadian contexts. Graduates also benefit from reciprocity with certification bodies across North America.
The Program is a three-year curriculum, comprising a Foundation year and M1 and M2 years.
Applicants with previous related design degrees (for example, a Bachelor of Landscape Architecture) may have some or all of the Foundation Year courses waived.
It is a course-based degree—which means no research thesis is required—structured around 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 (FGS) support different funding opportunities and awards.
For a full list, please visit: https://sapl.ucalgary.ca/current-students/resources/funding
All award amounts are in Canadian dollars.
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- Mary-Ellen M. Tyler Travel Award in Master of Landscape Architecture ($2,000)
- SAPL Entrance Scholarships ($1,000- 5,000)
- SAPL Continuing Scholarships ($1,000-2,000)
Donor funded and administered through UofC FGS:
- Charles E. & Walton Kendrew Scholarship ($5,500)
- Margaret (Peg) Brown Award in Ecological Design ($2,500)
- 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 ($1,700)
- Brian R Sinclair Graduate Scholarship in Environmental Design ($3,000)
- SAPL Alumni Scholarship ($2,900)
- SAPL Dean’s Advisory Council Entrance Scholarship ($1,400)
- Solar Energy Society of Canada Inc (SESCI) ‘84 Scholarship ($800)
- Kenneth MacLean Glazier Graduate Scholarship ($800)
- Dean William T Perks and Patricia C Bond Scholarship in Sustainable Design ($1,200)
- Chancellor Cuthbertson Environmental Design Graduate Entrance Scholarship ($10,000) - alternates between MLA, MPlan and MArch
- Canadian Environmental Graduate Scholarship ($1,900)
- Allan H Bill Memorial Scholarship ($1,300)
- SAPL Gold Medal
- Governor General’s Gold Medal
- LACF U of C Scholarship ($1,000)
- LACF - Maglin Scholarship ($5,000)
- LACF U of C Canadian Landscape Charter Scholarship ($3,000)
Nationally and internationally competitive:
- CSLA Student Award of Excellence ($1,000)
- LACF Walter Kehm Scholarship ($5,000)
- SALA Academic Award ($1,500)
- CELA Fountain Scholar ($2,000)
- LAF Scholarships
- LAF Olmsted Scholar
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 architecture, integrating humanities, natural sciences, design, and technical expertise—with emphasis on nature-based solutions—can effectively contribute to responsible land stewardship and building resilient environments and communities. Being landscape architecture inherently a transdisciplinary profession, researchers and practitioners in this field are well equipped with the knowledge and skills to address complex problems and lead the exploration, development and execution of innovative solutions for current global challenges related to climate change and environmental and social justice.
Message from the Associate Dean (Landscape Architecture)
The Master of Landscape Architecture in the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape is Canada's newest Landscape Architecture professional degree program. Our first class was admitted in 2015 and graduated in 2018. In the same year, the program was accredited by the Canadian Society of Landscape Architects.
SAPL MLA program is situated in a geographical and socio-cultural context at the forefront of globalized issues such as climate crisis, energy and economy, and decolonization. The regional context, the Province of Alberta, within the national Canadian context, enables our program to address these issues through specific course contents and a regional approach to landscape architecture.
We value exploring design solutions that are based in place and benefit local landscapes and communities at multiple scales, from addressing issues of sprawl and livability at the city scale to challenges and opportunities at the regional scale of foothills, prairies, and mountains as sources of identity and design inspiration.
Landscape architecture involves planning and designing with human and natural processes. Integrating humanities, natural sciences, and design, landscape architecture can effectively contribute to responsible land stewardship.
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 space design, gardens, parks and recreation, climate change mitigation, 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, 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.”