Going out into the field: an experience of the landscape architecture studio incorporating service-learning and participatory design in Taiwan

Landscape architecture education is a newly developed profession in Taiwanese higher education where the studio is the core curriculum. This paper discusses an alternative studio model where students construct their knowledge and skills through service-learning and participatory design in a real-world environment. A case study based on a first-year undergraduate landscape architecture studio using this system is used to explore the practical factors influencing the implementation process and the extent to which they affect the consistency between pedagogical objectives and actual performance. It argues that, although students can feel challenged because of their limited professional competence, multiple roles and adjustments to field-based education, the value of learning through experience can help transform experience into new action.