The Bartlett Landscape Architecture MA / MLA 2019

Landscape Architecture MA/MLA

Modules and Studios History & Theory of Landscape Architecture Module Co-ordinator: Tim Waterman Landscape, Inhabitation & Environmental Systems Module Co-ordinator: Ana Abram Landscape Design 1-3 Module Co-ordinators: Laura Allen, Mark Smout Landscape Architecture Practice & Theory Module Co-ordinator: Tim Waterman Landscape, Ecology & Urban Environments Module Co-ordinator: Ana Abram Landscape Thesis Module Co-ordinator: Tim Waterman Advanced Landscape Design 1 & 2 Module Co-ordinators: Laura Allen, Mark Smout Design Studio 1 Tutors: Ana Abram, Maj Plemenitas Design Studio 2 Tutors: Cannon Ivers, Alex Malaescu

Image: Jialong (Long) Wan, Studio 2, Landscape Architecture MA, ‘The Uncanny Workmanship of Nature’

Landscape Architecture MA/MLA 2019

Images 1 Yujia Wang, Studio 2, Landscape Architecture can tell the rich stories of the area by becoming MLA Year 1, ‘Growing History: Plant Library’. enclosed sanctuaries, filled with strawberries and Located outside on the Senate House Library, sheltering people from the real world, providing a this project takes the shape of a 3D experiential surreal experience. garden, hosting various plant species.

8 Youngjing Jun, Studio 2, Landscape Architecture 2 Zhenni (Litri) Liao, Studio 2, Landscape MLA Year 1, ‘Subterranean Arboretum in Programme Laura Allen, Smout The Subterranean Arboretum Architecture MLA Directors: Year 1, ‘Palimpsest Festival’.

The Mark Southwark’. project is located on the site of Coryton Refinery, examines the effect of rising temperatures, exploring the idea of temporary inhabitation of caused by climate change, on trees. It proposes industrial structures and landscapes. The project to relocate key tree specimens to sunken areas on is presented as a series of episodes describing the former surface car parks to reduce the ambient palimpsest festival – aofsurreal temperature. Translocating four of London’s This is an art exhibition firsts.experience Welcome to the first Students 2018-19 meant to add to the site’s rich history. ancient trees through the streets of London exhibition of work from the first year of the new 3 Ran (Heather) He, Studio 2, Landscape becomes a ceremonial spectacle and a warning.

Landscape Architecture MLA programmes Landscape Architecture Architecture MA, ‘Sealine Park’.MA Theand Sealine Supersized containers for the ancient trees create at The Bartlett of Architecture.

MLA Park explores ideasSchool and methods to register andA renewed experiential themed platforms inspired by the key document the oftto en-imperceptible fluctuations elementsat of a utopia: four rivers,Chen nudity, sleeping, commitment land and landscape-based education Siqi (Emily) of theBartlett environment in the face of a the climate crisis.ethic to over-sized scale and music. (Dawn) Han The accompanies burgeoning support Daoyang Devices and pavilions set within this dynamic tidal 9 Youngjin Jun, Studio 2, Landscape Architecture sustainability and deal with real-world challenges, such Si Teng (Cintia) Huang landscape measure sea-level rise, coastal erosion, MLA Year 1, ‘Subterranean Arboretum in Southwark’. as biodiversity loss, climate change, and ecological crisis.

Chongyang1,(David) Huang changes in weather patterns and temperature.

10 Dafodilo Samsoemin, Studio Landscape The timing of these programmes’ inauguration couldMLA Year Youngjing Jun Hydrological The project aims to makenew visible the environmental Architecture 1, ‘Distributed changes that would otherwise go unseen, by Infrastructure for Mumbai’. not be more critical, and the intellectual and geographical JingminModel.

(Jamie) Liang carefully inserting design interventions at key Nga Man (Alison) Tang, Studio 1, Landscape scope of the programmes broaden the range of11the Zhenni (Litri) Liao locations along a linear route, using pavilions Architecture MLA Year 1, ‘Hong Kong Water Park’. school as a whole.

Xiaoying and landscape elements to draw attention to Revitalising the Shan Pui River. (Yannis) Liu natural This pamphlet the twoof studios which ran Masina processes and apresents coastline in a state 12 Nga Man (Alison)Carlotta Tang Studio 1, Landscape constant change.

Architecture 1, ‘HongSamsoemin Kong Vertical Water this year, each of which was conducted in three sections MLA Year Daffodilo 4 Jialong Park’.

Revitalising the urban tissue surrounding over the(Long) year,Wan, andStudio each 1, ofLandscape which addressed those issues, Nga Man (Alison) Tang the Architecture MA, ‘Salt Scape’. A salt-producing Shan Pui River. Model. as well as examining the ongoing and future impact of Haoming Tang landscape and marshland habitat in the 13 Ngoc Anh Phan (Sally) Tran, Studio 1, Landscape sea-level rise and land subsidence on the Thames estuaryMLA Year Ngoc Anh PhanMachine’.

(Sally) Tran Medway Estuary.

Architecture 1, ‘Geological and its environs. design studios comprise the core ofembedded Silingterritorial-scale Wang 5 Yiming (Eemy) Ren,The Studio 2, Landscape Design of an water Architecture MA,in‘Back to Nature’.

The project design purifi cation system.Yujia Physical simulation on the the teaching landscape architectural education.

(Yvonne) Wang is set in the future when the known coast of UK hydromorphological test table.

They seek to cover a wide terrain of design, technological, is submerged – the island that emerges is Pitsea 14 Jialong (Long) Wan, Studio 1, Landscape social, urban, cultural, material, environmental, Landscape Architecture Landfill. The project explorespolitical, strategies for re-wilding Architecture MA, ‘Salt Scape’. Hydrodynamic ecological, andthe historical and investigations.

MA and transforming island in askills natural park. simulations and controlled flooding patterns of 6 Ngoc Anh develop Phan (Sally) Tran, Studio 1, Landscape the salt fields, Medway Estuary.

Behavioural model.

Students and elaborate upon a particular area of Wen-Chi Fang Architecture MLA Year Machine’.

15 Dafodilo Samsoemin, Studio 1, Landscape study, informed by 1, a ‘Geological plethora of references, resourceful Ran (Heather) He Design of an embedded territorial-scale water Architecture MLA Year 1, ‘Hydro-Morphology explorations, and critical enquiries. Work is highly Menglu Li purification system.

Simulation of Selective Water-Purification System’. personal, yet developed in a strongly collaborative 7 Siqi (Emily)and Chen, Studio 2, Landscape Behavioural model.Camila Moreno Zambrano way, both at inter-studio and inter-departmental level. Moreno Zhengqing Pan Architecture MLA Year 1, ‘Hortus Conclusus: 16 Camila Zambrano, Landscape The Garden of Symbolism’. The project explores Architecture MA, ‘Stories of (Eemy) a Haunted Thames’.

Yiming Ren how unused urban spaces around Holborn Circus Collected artefacts.

Jialong (Long) Wan Suwen (Sue) Zhu

Design Studio 1 The Amphibious Interfaces: Atmospheric, Fluvial, Coastal and Pelagic Dynamics Tutors: Ana Abram, Maj Plemenitas This studio’s activities are predicated on the idea that water is the driving force of nature as well as civilisation on planet Earth, and that the world’s major water-related questions are complex, systemic, interconnected, and urgent.

To live with water requires a fundamental understanding of its free state, shapechanging behaviours and multi-scale nature as well as its constructive, destructive, metamorphic, and transformative powers. Water can act as a force, symbol, or material, and it has the ability to change, flow, mix, dissolve, solidify and vaporise, while simultaneously permeating and trespassing established boundaries.

Studio One considers the evolving domain of landscape architecture as a critical synthetic discipline of the future.

Theory, technology, and methodologies germane to landscape architecture provide not only the tools but the frame of knowledge necessary to encounter the indeterminate zones where water and land interact – amphibious interfaces – such as islands and coastlines. The studio’s primary focus is on these ambiguous, dynamic and complex spaces, as well as investigating the overarching questions of climate change, increasing population, sea-level rise, pollution, transport, and food and energy production amongst many others.

This year, students examined a sequence of sites that are related and interconnected, and which operate across a broad range of operational, temporal, and spatial scales. They developed dynamic landscape models through the use of digital simulation, remote sensing data, material research and physical simulation instruments such as the hydro

and geomorphological flow and sediment table, to explore small-scale processes that have the capacity to influence large-scale processes and dynamics.

Studio One took three parts over the course of the year. In Part 1, ‘Global Amphibious Atlas’, students explored the large scale, looking at landscape and urban infrastructure, rivers, lakes, coastlines, oceans, and atmospheres from afar. Part 2 examined London’s hydrology, anthropology, geomorphology, and ecosystems. The third and final part, having completed a field trip to Istanbul and Cappadocia in Turkey, explored the fluctuating anthropogenic and environmental interfaces between European and Asian continents, and sought to place these sites within a global and international context.

Design Studio 2 Unknown Coasts Tutors: Cannon Ivers, Alex Malaescu Studio Two’s explorations begin with the tension that, as an island nation, the UK’s entire coastline is under threat from climate change. Projected sea-level rise, increased storm events and storm surges leading to territorial flooding pose a huge risk to coastal nations. The projections for the 21st century are uncertain, generally ranging from around 25cm to around 100cm, however an extreme scenario for UK coastal flooding poses as much as 250cm mean global sea-level rise by the year 2100. Design challenges such as ‘California’s Resilient Bay’ and ‘Resilient by Design’, point to the agency of landscape architects as critical actors in designing for changing climates.

This year, the studio pursued speculative proposals at various scales, exploring processes over time and the operational nature of infrastructural landscapes in order to expose the

imaginary, the creative, the abundant possibilities mixed with rational and technical responses within the complexities of this framework.

London’s engine room, the Thames estuary, framed the studio’s work. It handles its waste, power generation, ports and trade, to name a few. Initial focus was on a multifunctional site south of Basildon, east of the Thames Barrier, near Coryton.

The area is dominated by fragments of industrial operations and natural systems; of landscape and coastal settlements colliding and engaging with the constant tidal conditions of the River Thames.

Studio Two asked the difficult question of what might occur in these areas as sea levels increase. Polluting industries are a liability for contamination during flooding and storm surges, and many of the region’s industries have already relocated inland, leaving behind a territory of vacant, postindustrial artefacts for human exploration and reinvention. The water is coming.

With the water’s inevitable advance ahead, students sought to find new potential for these sites, asking how the site could be reimagined and repurposed to let the water in. Students investigated how artefacts and the remaining infrastructures might create new niches for ecological habitat, new zones of human occupation, and new types of use, whether temporary or permanent.

The juxtapositions and intersections of infrastructure, natural systems and flows, as well as patterns of process and largescale operations, served as a ground onto which new possibilities could be projected, deriving less from understanding of form and more from processes; moving away from fixed, rigid models towards a more flexible, organic, and fluid approach.

The Studio went to Copenhagen to explore completed contemporary landscape projects and visit leading design practices BIG and COBE landscape, urban and architecture studios.

Skilling Workshops Co-ordinator: Maj Plemenitas The MLA and MA programmes are supported by an evolving series of workshops and classes. The skills teaching enables our students to develop a comprehensive and systemic understanding of state-of-the-art skills, methods and strategies specific to contemporary design research, theory and practice. Students gain knowledge and understanding of fundamental skills as well as exposure to a wide range of techniques relating to emerging technologies and media.

This year’s workshops included: Drawing & Visualisation Media Computer Modelling Analogue Modelling Animation, AR & VR, Mixed-Reality Technology Graphic, Video and Portfolio Presentation Horticulture and Planting Construction Materials and Techniques Mapping and Data Handling Simulations Site Surveying Research Methods Academic Writing

Visiting Critics, Design Studio 1 Eduardo Caranzza, Blanche Cameron, Eduardo Rico, Tom Pipan, Aisling O’Carroll Visiting Critics, Design Studio 2 Inigo Cornago Bonal, Luila Fratila, Christophe Lueder, Ed Wall

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

Environment & Technology Environment and Landscape Technology teaching is delivered concurrently with studio-based modules and comprises a lecture series, case study reviews, seminars, site visits and cross-studio crits.

The school’s network of practitioners and specialist consultants in subjects such as earth sciences, planting design, ecology and climate change adaptation, planning and urban design, and construction technologies, amongst many others, contributed to teaching and reviews throughout these modules.

15

Landscape, Inhabitation & Environmental Systems

Landscape, Ecology & Urban Environments

Module Co-ordinator: Ana Abram This module sets out the discipline of landscape architecture in relation to physical and natural processes and anthropogenic impacts. This year, relationships to resource systems, ecology and climates, hydrology, geology and topography were examined.

Case studies explored key aspects of landscape appraisal and environmental assessment, planning and design strategy, and the integration of these matters into coherent landscape architecture projects.

Landscape architecture detail was also addressed, relating seasonality to materials, horticulture, and soft and hard landscaping.

Across three lecture sequences, students developed an understanding of why key environmental systems matter in contemporary landscape architecture; an understanding of what those systems mean for built environments; and finally, of how to assess and realise built landscapes using contemporary building technologies.

Module Co-ordinator: Ana Abram The module addresses the role that landscape architecture can play in the synthesis of urban environments to help tune and fundamentally change the nature of the ‘urban metabolism’.

This year, broader national and international, ecological and resource systems as well as environmental assessment and inhabitation scenarios were addressed. Part one focused on site analysis and evaluation of landscapes over time. Part two looked at landscape strategies, phasing and future proposals.

Innovative historical and current case studies were interrogated in detail to reveal key aspects of their urban landscape context, design strategies and implementation. Students undertook critical reflection on this, going on to make their own propositions in this field that could augment the work being undertaken.

History & Theory of Landscape Architecture Co-ordinator: Tim Waterman This module provides a robust foundation, tying together the ideas behind the built landscape and the resulting forms across time, from the scale of the garden to the continent. Building upon this foundation, students explore philosophy alongside patterns and methods of contemporary practice. They develop their critical and research skills across the programme, in coordination with their studio work.

The module culminates in the Landscape Thesis, completed with the guidance of dedicated supervisors. In this, students research a specific individual area of interest that informs and supports their design research.

In professional landscape architectural practice, there is much emphasis upon communicating sophisticated understandings and complex strategies through documents which thoughtfully combine text and image. The thesis supports such integrative and synthetic work, and is itself a work of design.

The thesis supports the development of individual ideas and philosophies within the larger framework of landscape architecture history; current practice, politics, and dwelling; and speculative futures near and far.

This year the range of thesis topics was wide and fascinating, and as with the studios, many were focused on the River Thames and its meanings.

Of particular note was Camila Moreno

16

Zambrano’s essay ‘Stories of the Haunted Thames’ (pictured), which used hauntological methods to explore (watery) places, artefacts, work and play, and the narratives that connect them.

Ran (Heather) He’s thesis, ’Seawalls, Landmarks, Canvey Island’ and Jialong Wan’s thesis, ‘Stepping in Landscape: An Exploration Between Walking and Synergy’ (pictured inside cover) both used walking and photography as methods to map and critique sequential experience and subtle topographies in which the distinction between land and water is difficult to discern, if indeed it is possible to draw a distinction at all.

All these theses, as with so many others submitted, are rich both visually and textually, and designed with élan.

Thesis Supervisors Loretta Bosence, Eric Guibert, Ed Wall, Harry Watkins

Images 1 Yujia Wang, Studio 2, Landscape Architecture MLA Year 1, ‘Growing History: Plant Library’.

Located outside on the Senate House Library, this project takes the shape of a 3D experiential garden, hosting various plant species.

2 Zhenni (Litri) Liao, Studio 2, Landscape Architecture MLA Year 1, ‘Palimpsest Festival’. The project is located on the site of Coryton Refinery, exploring the idea of temporary inhabitation of industrial structures and landscapes. The project is presented as a series of episodes describing the palimpsest art festival – a surreal experience meant to add to the site’s rich history.

3 Ran (Heather) He, Studio 2, Landscape Architecture MA, ‘Sealine Park’. The Sealine Park explores ideas and methods to register and document the often-imperceptible fluctuations of the environment in the face of the climate crisis.

Devices and pavilions set within this dynamic tidal landscape measure sea-level rise, coastal erosion, changes in weather patterns and temperature.

The project aims to make visible the environmental changes that would otherwise go unseen, by carefully inserting design interventions at key locations along a linear route, using pavilions and landscape elements to draw attention to natural processes and a coastline in a state of constant change.

4 Jialong (Long) Wan, Studio 1, Landscape Architecture MA, ‘Salt Scape’. A salt-producing landscape and marshland habitat in the Medway Estuary.

5 Yiming (Eemy) Ren, Studio 2, Landscape Architecture MA, ‘Back to Nature’. The project is set in the future when the known coast of UK is submerged – the island that emerges is Pitsea Landfill. The project explores strategies for re-wilding and transforming the island in a natural park.

6 Ngoc Anh Phan (Sally) Tran, Studio 1, Landscape Architecture MLA Year 1, ‘Geological Machine’.

Design of an embedded territorial-scale water purification system.

7 Siqi (Emily) Chen, Studio 2, Landscape Architecture MLA Year 1, ‘Hortus Conclusus: The Garden of Symbolism’. The project explores how unused urban spaces around Holborn Circus

can tell the rich stories of the area by becoming enclosed sanctuaries, filled with strawberries and sheltering people from the real world, providing a surreal experience.

8 Youngjing Jun, Studio 2, Landscape Architecture MLA Year 1, ‘Subterranean Arboretum in Southwark’. The Subterranean Arboretum examines the effect of rising temperatures, caused by climate change, on trees. It proposes to relocate key tree specimens to sunken areas on former surface car parks to reduce the ambient temperature. Translocating four of London’s ancient trees through the streets of London becomes a ceremonial spectacle and a warning.

Supersized containers for the ancient trees create experiential themed platforms inspired by the key elements of a utopia: four rivers, nudity, sleeping, over-sized scale and music.

9 Youngjin Jun, Studio 2, Landscape Architecture MLA Year 1, ‘Subterranean Arboretum in Southwark’.

10 Dafodilo Samsoemin, Studio 1, Landscape Architecture MLA Year 1, ‘Distributed Hydrological Infrastructure for Mumbai’. Model.

11 Nga Man (Alison) Tang, Studio 1, Landscape Architecture MLA Year 1, ‘Hong Kong Water Park’.

Revitalising the Shan Pui River.

12 Nga Man (Alison) Tang Studio 1, Landscape Architecture MLA Year 1, ‘Hong Kong Vertical Water Park’. Revitalising the urban tissue surrounding the Shan Pui River. Model.

13 Ngoc Anh Phan (Sally) Tran, Studio 1, Landscape Architecture MLA Year 1, ‘Geological Machine’.

Design of an embedded territorial-scale water purification system. Physical simulation on the hydromorphological test table.

14 Jialong (Long) Wan, Studio 1, Landscape Architecture MA, ‘Salt Scape’. Hydrodynamic simulations and controlled flooding patterns of the salt fields, Medway Estuary. Behavioural model.

15 Dafodilo Samsoemin, Studio 1, Landscape Architecture MLA Year 1, ‘Hydro-Morphology Simulation of Selective Water-Purification System’.

Behavioural model.

16 Camila Moreno Zambrano, Landscape Architecture MA, ‘Stories of a Haunted Thames’.

Collected artefacts.

ucl.ac.uk/architecture