URI landscape architecture program recognized

KINGSTON – A national design magazine, “Design Intelligence,” this month ranked the University of Rhode Island’s undergraduate landscape architecture program among the top 15 such programs in the United States.
The URI program tied with the University of Florida for the 14th spot, URI announced. The magazine surveyed more than 200 architecture, design and landscape architecture firms in deciding which programs are the best.
The top three programs listed in the America’s Best Architecture & Design Schools 2009 were at the University of Georgia, Kansas State University and Louisiana State University, according to URI.
“I’ve been here since the formation of our program in the 1980s and it is very gratifying to see our program recognized in this way,” department acting-Chair Angelo Simeoni said in a statement. “It is even more exciting when you know that all of the programs listed ahead of us are old, well-established programs that are considerably larger than ours. We’re in very good company.”
The program, which has five full-time faculty members, accepts 20 students annually. Accepted students take part in community-design projects, which have included the redesign of a North Kingstown schoolyard, the creation of a landscaping plan along Interstate 95 and URI’s campus master plan.
“Students work on these projects as a team, and while they realize the projects won’t necessarily get built as they designed them, they get the vital benefit of going through the process much as they would as professionals,” Simeoni said. “In the case of the URI master plan, former students are still coming back to campus in awe to see how the project is coming along.”
The University of Rhode Island is a member – along with the Community College of Rhode Island and Rhode Island College – of the statewide public university system overseen by the R.I. Board of Governors for Higher Education. Additional URI news and information are available at www.uri.edu/news.