Our global environmental crisis poses the challenge of devising a new model of ecologically responsible interdisciplinary practice that brings together two disciplines—architecture and landscape architecture—that have been professionally segregated at least since the nineteenth century. The first half of the term looks at this issue from a cultural and historical perspective, tracing the ideological origins of the architecture/landscape divide to another Western polarity—the false opposition between nature and culture, human and non-human—dualisms that are deeply rooted in Western literature, philosophy, popular culture, and even notions of gender and sexuality. The seminar explores how this way of thinking has impacted design practices in America from Frederick Law Olmsted in the mid-nineteenth century to Ian McHarg and Robert Smithson in the 1960s and 1970s. During the second half of the term the focus shifts to consider contemporary trends, examining the work of a diverse group of architects, landscape architects, and artists who have been undertaking groundbreaking projects that dissolve traditional distinctions between building and environment. Three converging design directions that unite this otherwise heterogeneous group—topography, bio-computation, and ecology—are identified, and the affinities and differences between them are discussed.