During the summer of 2017, fourteen students embarked on a trip of a lifetime as part of a course, European Urban Form and Design, with Associate Professor of Plant Science and Landscape Architecture Peter Miniutti, and adjunct instructor Natalie Gray Miniutti.
Two years ago, the husband and wife team went to Florence as part of a teaching project organized by then-Associate Dean Cameron Faustman, at ISI Florence. After the trip, the pair decided they wanted to organize a study abroad trip for their landscape architecture (LA) students.
“We can all be a little egocentric in our day-to-day lives,” says Peter Miniutti. “Traveling to foreign countries for an extended period helps the students see their environment differently, more objectively. It makes it easier for the students to see how age-old universal design principles manifest themselves in built form century after century. Done right, nothing beats experiential learning.”
The four-week trip included eight countries and twelve cities. Students paid approximately $5,000 each for their flight, train travel and accommodations. They were required to take a one-credit pre-departure class, in addition to the three-credit landscape architecture study abroad course. Students were housed in youth hostels and traveled by Eurail pass. Most of the students are landscape architecture majors, save one business major.
The adventure included stops in Lisbon, Portugal, Madrid and Barcelona in Spain, three cities in Italy–Rome, Florence and Venice–as well as Munich and Berlin in Germany, Prague in the Czech Republic, Amsterdam in the Netherlands, Brussels in Belgium, and France, returning home from Paris.
