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Educational offer

High-level training course, 2025 Edition

Architecture for Landscape

Course periodSep 8, 2025 – Nov 14, 2025
Applications deadlineJun 27, 2025
PlacementSnøhetta, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, LAND, HHF Architects, SANAA, AMDL CIRCLE, Mario Cucinella Architects, BIG - Bjarke Ingels Group
Architecture for Landscape

Brief

From Stonehenge to Greek temples, architecture is the signature of humankind on landscape, the artificial element that has always been connected to the natural environment.

Architecture and landscape are linked by a fundamental continuity that is now starting to fade, damaging the quality of the space in which we dwell. More than ever today, landscape is a precious heritage that architecture can and must enhance, while protecting it to pass it on to future generations:

architects shall not give up on working on landscape, instead they should be able to design architectures that respond to each landscape’s specific feature and generate wonderful and unique spaces.

The "Architecture for Landscape" course was created on these premises: it aims at training designers who are able to meet the diverse needs of transforming territories, enforcing an attentive and productive dialogue with the surrounding landscape to respond to the needs of prestigious clients in outstanding contexts.

Through a thorough analysis of the natural world, light and geomorphological features of terrains, the designers will become more and more able to reconnect human design to the natural environment and be inspired by landscape to design outstanding, sustainable, and impressive architectures.

The course will be made up of 84 hours of lessons, a 32-hour workshop, and multiple lectures by well-renowned professional architects.

At the end of the course, Yacademy Placement office will guarantee each student a proposal for an internship/collaboration within the partner studios.

Course info

Language

Italian & English

simultaneous translation in English always available
Available places

15 In person
5 Online

Place

Bologna

Course timeline

8.9.2025 - 14.11.2025

3 days/week
Placement activation

November 2025 - February 2026

Enrollment fee

€ 2,900 + VAT

Online
Enrollment fee

€ 9,700 + VAT

In person*
Scholarships

3

Full coverage of the enrollment fee for the most outstanding candidates
* it can be split in three installments (with a 6% increase on the total amount)

Teaching modules & Workshops

Landscape theory and history

Historical and artistic reflection on the evolution of the landscape concept

The garden site

Management and realization of green areas

Botanics for design

Drawing design inspiration from plants

Extreme Architecture

The mountains’ teaching, remote places and impossible building sites

Climate Change

Future scenarios and mechanisms of environment and landscape transformation

The landscape project

Building the places

Sustainable designing

Principles of sustainability and bio-architecture

Newtech for Sustainability

Trends and innovation in sustainable architecture

The co-existence of species

Understanding and protecting biodiversity

Climate Positive Landscape

Protocols and methodologies to reduce the anthropic footprint

Building with wood

Techniques and possibilities of timber architecture

Vernacular architecture

Experiences of continuity between landscape and architecture

Handling landscape

Creative experimentation through nature

Site Visits

Cavea Arcari

Asinara island

Special lectures and critiques

The Whale: between landscape and imagery

Lars Johan Almgren / Dorte Mandrup

Underwater landscapes: Under

Patrick Lüth / Snøhetta

NYC in green: the High Line

Miles Nelligan / Diller Scofidio + Renfro

Balance and relationships between built and natural landscape

Toyo Ito / Toyo Ito & Associates

Kodama: between architecture and spirits of the forest

Kengo Kuma / Kengo Kuma & Associates

Ca'n Terra: the return to the caves

Antón García-Abril / Ensamble Studio

BIG: architecture between landmark and research

Bjarke Ingels / BIG

Cavea Arcari: the anthropic landscape as performative stage

Giuseppe Zampieri / David Chipperfield Architects Milano

Turenscape: scenarios from China between design and landscape

Kongjian Yu / Turenscape Architects

Design with bamboo: scenarios and charm from Indonesia

Elora Hardy / IBUKU

Re-designing an island

Design workshop

Andreas Fries & Mónica Gaspar Bonilla / Herzog & de Meuron

The workshop will be conducted in collaboration with LWCircus and Asinara National Park and will involve intervention on the homonymous island. Located on the extreme western tip of Sardinia, in front of the legendary Stintino and Alghero beaches - which define the quintessence of an island sculpted by history and landscape with their nuraghi - the Asinara island constitutes one of the least anthropised naturalistic oases in the Sardinian natural landscape. Magnificent shores of crystal-clear water go hand in hand with dry, iridescent vegetation whose vibrant colours mark the cycle of seasons, shifting from acid green spring hues to autumn reds. Rich in history and witness to dramatic and significative moments in the Italian past, the layered heritage of the Asinara island surpasses its mere landscape - which is nonetheless exceptional, composed of rare endemisms transmitted since distant times. With all penitentiary functions ceased around the 2000s, the future of Asinara is today yet to be written. In this sense, the workshop will be oriented to define interventions and strategies for the reactivation of the island in harmony with a dominating and wonderful nature. From the relationship with the dismissed penitentiary architecture to the dialogue with nature and the preservation of local fauna (many donkeys that live there) as well as the marine ecosystem, a framework very rich in biodiversity with its Neptune grass, the Asinara island represents a privileged context for reflections focusing on the subject of the course, namely, landscape.

Construction workshop

Construction is a fundamental step in architecture. For this reason, YACademy offers its students the opportunity to participate in the process of producing their own ideas. Thus, the students will gain practical experience on construction sites and, above all, the authorship of projects built for excellent commissions, destined for a major media echo and capable of defining a turning point in their professional career.

Placement

At the end of teaching modules and workshop, YACademy’s Placement office will guarantee every student an internship or collaboration proposal in one of our partner studios.

Teachers

Admission

Requirements

Students or graduates in Architecture/Design can apply to the course. The commission, based on the assessment of the application, may admit students with different qualifications.

Registration

To apply, it is necessary to register online and submit a Curriculum Vitae, a Portfolio, and a Motivational Letter. Moreover, it is necessary to pay the application fee (€60 + VAT). The best 20 candidates will be admitted to the course according to the rules.

Scholarship

By applying for the course, the students automatically become eligible to obtain a scholarship: one will be granted to each of the best 3 applicants for each course, consistently with the Selection Committee's evaluation. Therefore, it is not necessary to make specific actions to apply for a scholarship. The scholarship covers the entire enrollment fee - regardless of the type of attendance chosen -, but does not cover the application fee (€60 + VAT) that has to be paid in order to complete the application process successfully.

Timeline

Complying with deadlines is a fundamental requirement to take part in the course. All students are encouraged to pay the utmost attention to the timeline and to complete each phase in advance.

Applications opening

Applications deadline

Publication of the provisional ranking

Beginning of second-round admissions

Enrollment fee payment deadline for students admitted according to the provisional ranking

Publication of the official ranking (including second-round admitted students)

Lessons start

Download

Make sure you have downloaded the course brochure, from which you will be able to obtain any information about YACademy, as well as every single detail on how to access and enrol in the courses.

Brochure IT

Brochure EN

Download the 2023/24 internships report

Find out all the statistics and placement methodology for the year 2023/24: 39% of students entered Pritzker studios.

Past editions gallery

P1069021P1056209P1069181 1Dsc F5543 1Dsc F2241 1Dsc F1899 5 1Dsc F1899 6 1Dsc F1899 1

Partners

To each one of them, many thanks from YACademy staff and students.

LWCircusParco Nazionale dell'Asinara

The natural environment as a design stage

Architecture for Landscape

Landscape

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