Environmental design promotes the best use of a community's land and physical resources for residential, commercial, institutional, and recreational purposes.

Environmental Design provides students with the skills to understand, analyze, and solve development problems with a view toward community planning and the design of sustainable environments. The purpose of environmental design is to gain a better understanding of community environments, and then apply that knowledge to improve physical surroundings.

University at Buffalo Environmental Design addresses issues in the dynamic bi-national Buffalo-Niagara region as a laboratory for planning, design, and development.

Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of all requirements, the student will have knowledge of:

• Fundamental Skills: Ability to effectively use basic planning and development principles in environmental design;
• Investigative Skills: Ability to gather, assess, record, apply, and comparatively evaluate information related to environmental design challenges;
• Communication Skills: Ability to effectively read, write, speak and listen, and visually communicate ideas;
• Critical Practice Skills: Ability to apply evidence-based design, development, and planning methods and precedents to environmental design processes and proposals; and,
• Graduate School & Entry Level Job Preparation Skills: Students will be well prepared to enter graduate school or an entry-level position in an environmental design related field of study.