August Intensives are mandatory and in-person courses for the MARC, MLA, MUD, and post-professional programs. 

ARC1021H: Visual Communications

Dates: August 18-29, 2025

This course explores contemporary and historical modes of visual communication used to illustrate and convey design ideas. It will present a survey of contributions to architectural and spatial representation with special attention on instances in which drawing was advanced at the core of an architect‘s or artist’s practice, during which new forms of image-making were developed as a product of cultural context and technical procedure. This course will invite students to develop their ability with critical research and writing toward the analysis and discursive situation of images, while also offering students the opportunity to advance their grasp of two-dimensional and three-dimensional drawing techniques through the execution of complex drawings of historic, contemporary, and canonical architectural works. 

ARC2042H: Site Engineering and Ecology

Dates: August 18-29, 2025

This course offers an introduction to grading concepts and techniques, with an emphasis on the interrelationship between technical and design issues. Short exercises and project assignments will introduce site engineering principles in grading and storm water management system design. Site design requires the comprehension of multiple processes, existing and proposed. All landscape and architectural design relates to a site in some way.

LAN1041H: Field Studies 

Dates: August 20-26, 2025

MLA Field course is required for all incoming professional Master of Landscape Architecture candidates (including Advanced Standing 2nd-year LAN students). The course investigates ecology and more specifically native plant communities in the Greater Toronto Area. This is a fast paced course and meets eight hours a day with evening and weekend work.

ALA4010H: Field Course

Dates: August 18-29, 2025

The Field Course is delivered in a pro-seminar format, with close readings and discussions as its primary engagement. These discussions are intended to help each student clarify the area of interest for their design-research, as well as the role that methodology plays in Architecture and Landscape Architecture.

ALA4020H: Thesis Preparation

Dates: August 18-29, 2025

Thesis Preparation is delivered in a pro-seminar format, with student presentations and discussions as its primary engagement. These assignments, presentations and discussions are intended to support each student in clarifying the foundations and methodology of their research. The course and assignments are structured to foster the development of individual research. 

URD1021H: Visual Communications

Dates: August 18-29, 2025

This course will introduce students to the purposes, image types, and image formats that urban designers commonly engage. It focuses on the concepts of rhetoric, abstraction , scale and the drawing set, as entry points for students to begin investigating what might be considered specific about urban design representation in relationship to architecture, landscape architecture, or planning. Students will develop conceptual knowledge and applied experience about the use of visual communication in urban design through an intensive project related to one site of urban change in the Greater Toronto Area.