West Virginia University Davis College of Agriculture and Natural Resources student was awarded the Benjamin A. Gilman Scholarship to study abroad in Western Europe this summer. The Scholarship allows students to travel abroad without financial constraints.
Chelsea Elliott, a senior landscape architecture major from Morgantown, spent three weeks traveling abroad while taking the Western European Gardens, Landscapes and Architecture course, which visited France, Netherlands, Germany and Belgium.
Throughout the three weeks, Elliott learned about Western European places, historical periods, agricultural landscapes and systems and types of landscape design. Students also learned to identify the most important Western European landscape architectural design periods and artistic styles that influenced design, recognized design landscapes, elements, styles, and buildings that serve as inspiration for design and more.
"Being a Gilman Scholar allowed me the opportunity to travel internationally and participate in a study abroad program, without this scholarship I would not have been able to travel abroad,” Elliott said. “Each country we visited had specific sites that correlated to the material we have learned in the classroom. I remember learning about the Garden of Versailles and thinking I would never get the opportunity to go there, so when it happened, and we went there, it was amazing.”
Students from various majors participated in this study abroad course, but most are in interior architecture, landscape architecture and horticulture majors. Throughout the trip, the faculty, including Peter Butler, Sven Verlinden and Ron Dulaney, interpret the buildings and landscapes that the group experiences. The group visited many famous landmarks and rural landscapes.
The Netherlands was her favorite country the class visited, explained Elliott. She learned by listening to local experts in the Netherlands where the group spent a day with a local guide and rode bicycles, visited farms, a school, historic sites, a cherry orchard and toured a windmill.
Elliott and the other students visited significant works of landscape architecture and design, including Claude Monet’s Garden at Giverny, the Palace and Gardens of Versailles, Tuileries Garden in Paris, Emscher Landscape Park in Duisburg, and the Het Loo Palace and Gardens in the Netherlands. Landscape architecture students learned about sustainable urban development centered on historic preservation and tourism.
“We visited some of the best examples of urban design for multi-modal, bicycle and pedestrian transportation in European cities, like Amsterdam, Leuven, Ghent, Bruges, Paris and Brussels,” said Butler, landscape architecture professor and Extension specialist. “Experiencing those designed open spaces and circulation systems in European cities provides context for student design work in landscape architecture. The study abroad experience adds to the design vocabulary and palette for students. Visiting sites that focus on sustainability in rural and urban environments demonstrates best practices for development in the United States.”
Having the opportunity to see effectively designed community spaces in Europe made Elliott want to implement those elements in her designs in West Virginia. She also saw a crossover with the content she has learned throughout her time in the Davis College.
“On the trip, I learned that as a landscape architect you can have small influences in your community to make a difference, whether that is creating a sustainable lawn or building big infrastructure,” Elliott said. “My biggest takeaway is it starts small on a local level.”
In addition to seeing famous design landmarks, students learned by completing daily readings, listening to faculty lectures, drawing, collaging and journaling throughout the trip. These experiences prepared her for her internship with The Thrasher Group, when she returned from her study abroad trip.
“I was able to take what I saw and learned in Europe and apply that to the work I was doing at my internship,” Elliott said. “A project I worked on was to connect biking trails to create a larger beltway for biking paths. In Europe, we biked a lot and I was able to take what I experienced and apply that to how biking trails can look in West Virginia.”
After graduation, Elliott hopes to stay in West Virginia to create and design community-oriented projects.
“I chose to major in landscape architecture because I love design, nature, the environment and creating – landscape architecture encompasses everything that I am interested in, and I feel connected to it,” Elliott said. “Landscape architects are making a real difference in West Virginia, and I am excited to be a part of that.”
-WVU-
sd/08/27/24
CONTACT: Sophia Darmelio
Marketing Strategist
WVU Division for Land-Grant Engagement
304-293-9490; swd0003@mail.wvu.edu