What's the difference between MLA and MA in Landscape Architecture?

Considering postgraduate study in the field of landscape architecture but not sure on your next steps? Here are the main differences between our MA and MLA courses to help you figure out which might be right for you.

Landscape Architecture MA

Do you have a degree in Landscape Architecture, or an overseas equivalent course? Our MA in Landscape Architecture gives you an opportunity to progress your studies, develop wider industry expertise and take the next step towards becoming a chartered landscape architect.

This Landscape Institute accredited MA Landscape Architecture course is designed to help you deepen your knowledge of the profession and provide you with highly skilled tools to deal with the challenges of the Anthropocene, especially climate change.

This forward looking and innovative course promotes well defined philosophies on the role of landscape architecture in shaping and providing meaningful change in the landscapes of the future, and on the natural and built ecosystems that are resilient to climate change impacts.

This course is one year full time or two years part time.

We welcome students who have a BA/BSc in Landscape Architecture, Landscape Design or Garden Design, or international equivalent field of study.

Landscape Architecture MLA

Don't have a bachelor’s degree in landscape architecture? Our Master's of Landscape Architecture (MLA) acts as a conversion course, enabling applicants from a range of disciplines an opportunity to build expertise to become a landscape architect.

The first year of the MLA introduces you to the core skills needed to understand designed ecologies and geographies through the design process. You’ll develop key design and communication skills that support all aspects of projects in a studio-based learning environment, understand and interpret landscape culture and set the foundations for progression onto the second year of the programme, which will have an increased focus on design, research and experimentation.

Over the duration of the course, you will develop skills and ways of thinking that enable you to improve habitats and environments across the full range of scales that range within Imagineering natural and built systems that are resilient to climate change impacts on the Earth’s surface.

This course is two years full time or three years part time.

We welcome students with an undergraduate degree in any subject. We are proud to have been successfully working with a range of students with backgrounds ranging from ecology, law, languages, geography, music, fine arts, planning, architecture and other design disciplines.