This seminar course will explore the emergence of geography as a guiding method and metaphor in recent architecture, landscape and urban design discourse and practice. In the beginning of the twenty-first century it has become clear that the form of urban settlement is driven by complex interacting systems, ecologies and economies. With the rise of globalization and post-fordist economics, the city as landscape is required to function socio-economically at the scale of region and globe, ecologi¿cally at the scale of region and watershed, and socio-politically at the scale of community and municipality. In this situation designers are increasingly confronted with complex layered problems affecting territorial scales, and as a result advanced design has looked to other disciplines, adopting geo¿graphic strategies for both analysis and formal articulation. This course will explore design¿s emergent geographic approach through readings, project case studies and finally with a speculative analysis and design proposal. We will examine both the key texts and projects of this emerging landscape urbanism with the thesis that the base paradigm is that of geography. In addition we will also explore texts on landscape ecology and cultural and urban geography to expand our analysis of the roles and territories that the contemporary city is expected to serve. Through the readings and project examples we will search for ways in which the use of geography and landscape can be integrated to create an urbanism capable of addressing social, economic, political and ecological issues. The project for the course will be a series of cumulative assignments to analyze and propose conceptual interventions to a site related to, but not necessarily in, the Pittsburgh region.