Environmental Design
Look around you. From the building you live in to the bike path you take to school or work to the farmer’s market you visit to buy healthy food, the built environment touches every aspect of your life.
It is also closely tied to some of the most complex problems facing cities today, from climate change and community health to public safety and housing affordability.
If you’re interested in how the world around you takes shape—and you want to help communities create places that are not only beautiful, but also sustainable, healthy and equitable for generations to come—then environmental design could be the field for you.
What will I learn?
As an environmental design major, you’ll study what people need (and want) in a community. You’ll explore design in relationship to the natural world and the social and political systems of our society and how these factors affect what gets built, where and how. And you’ll work across scales—from buildings to neighborhoods to regions—to create designs and plans that improve the places in which people live, work and play. Here at UB, we prepare community-minded designers and planners with skills in policy analysis, geographic information systems, architectural design and environmental law. You’ll jump right into our spirited community of makers and doers with hands-on work, from the classroom to the city and world around us.
What can I do with an environmental design degree?
Director of planning and development for a major U.S. metro area. Historic preservation expert at an award-winning architectural firm. Design director for a neighborhood organization focused on social and environmental equity. These are a few of the actual jobs held by our graduates. With the skills they learned at UB, our alumni are leading practice innovation across the fields of environmental design, including:
- Community and neighborhood development.
- Construction management.
- Economic development.
- Educational administration.
- Environmental management and restoration planning.
- Geographical information systems.
- Historic preservation.
- Industrial development and brownfield redevelopment.
- Planning for cities, counties, townships, villages and rural areas.
- Property management.
- Real estate assessment and development.
- Site planning and development.
- Transportation analysis.
- Zoning and land use.
In addition, many of our environmental design students pursue graduate study in architecture, urban planning and real estate development.
By the Numbers
Check out salary ranges and career outlooks straight from the U.S. Department of Labor to see the return on investment for your degree.
| Occupation Title | Mean Annual Wage | Mean Hourly Wage | Future Outlook |
|---|---|---|---|
| Architectural and Engineering Managers | $113,360.00 | N/A | Rapid Growth |
| Architects, Except Landscape and Naval | $144,570.00 | $69.50 | Rapid Growth |
| Landscape Architects | $110,260.00 | $53.01 | |
| Architecture Teachers, Postsecondary | $65,040.00 | $31.27 |
Data provided by the and DOL data from 2024.