Environmental design and planning is the moniker used by several Ph.D. programs that take a multidisciplinary approach to the built environment. Typically environmental design and planning programs address architectural history or design (interior or exterior), city or regional planning, landscape architecture history or design, environmental planning, construction science, cultural geography, or historic preservation. Social science methods are frequently employed; aspects of sociology or psychology can be part of a research program.

The concept of "environmental" in these programs is quite broad and can encompass aspects of the natural, built, work, or social environments.

Areas of research

• Architecture
  Architecture
  Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...
  
  
• Construction science
• Ecology
  Ecology
  Ecology is the scientific study of the relations that living organisms have with respect to each other and their natural environment. Variables of interest to ecologists include the composition, distribution, amount , number, and changing states of organisms within and among ecosystems...
  
  
• Environmental impact design
  Environmental impact design
  The theory and practice of Environmental impact assessment developed from the appreciation that development projects can have negative impacts - externalities which harm the environment...
  
  
• Environmental planning
  Environmental planning
  Environmental Planning is the process of facilitating decision making to carry out development with due consideration given to the natural environmental, social, political, economic and governance factors and provides a holistic frame work to achieve sustainable outcomes.-Elements of environmental...
  
  
• Environmental psychology
  Environmental psychology
  Environmental psychology is an interdisciplinary field focused on the interplay between humans and their surroundings. The field defines the term environment broadly, encompassing natural environments, social settings, built environments, learning environments, and informational environments...
  
  
• Environmental sociology
  Environmental sociology
  Environmental sociology is typically defined as the sociological study of societal-environmental interactions, although this definition immediately presents the perhaps insolvable problem of separating human cultures from the rest of the environment...
  
  
• Historic preservation
  Historic preservation
  Historic preservation is an endeavor that seeks to preserve, conserve and protect buildings, objects, landscapes or other artifacts of historical significance...
  
  
• Landscape architecture
  Landscape architecture
  Landscape architecture is the design of outdoor and public spaces to achieve environmental, socio-behavioral, or aesthetic outcomes. It involves the systematic investigation of existing social, ecological, and geological conditions and processes in the landscape, and the design of interventions...
  
  
• Sociology of architecture
  Sociology of architecture
  Sociology of architecture is a term that describes the sociological study of either:* the built environment or* the role and occupation of architects in societies...
  
  
• Sustainability
  Sustainability
  Sustainability is the capacity to endure. For humans, sustainability is the long-term maintenance of well being, which has environmental, economic, and social dimensions, and encompasses the concept of union, an interdependent relationship and mutual responsible position with all living and non...
  
  
• Urban planning
  Urban planning
  Urban planning incorporates areas such as economics, design, ecology, sociology, geography, law, political science, and statistics to guide and ensure the orderly development of settlements and communities....
  
  

Academic programs

The following universities offer a Ph.D. in environmental design and planning:

• Clemson University, College of Architecture, Arts and Humanities (Now called "Planning, Design, and the Built Environment")
• Arizona State University, College of Design
• Kansas State University
• University of Calgary (technically the Ph.D. is in "environmental design," but encompasses the same scope as the other programs)

Virginia Tech until recently offered the degree program, but has since replaced it with programs in "architecture and design research" and "planning, governance, and globalization".

Related programs

• University of Missouri, Columbia: Ph.D. in Human Environmental Sciences (PDF file) with emphasis in Architectural Studies.
• Texas A & M University offers a Ph.D. in architecture that emphasizes environmental design.