Issuu

20 25—26

NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE

NUS LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE Department of Architecture College of Design and Engineering National University of Singapore 4 Architecture Drive Singapore 117566 Chief Editor Yifeng Tiger Lin Editorial Assistants Chen Qingsong Li Yuanhao Graphic Designer Studio Vanessa Ban © National University of Singapore, 2025-2026 ISSN: 3060-8902 E-Magazine ISSN: 3060-8961 Title: Landscape @ NUS (AY2025-26)

Index 02 Forward 03 A Year in Review Public Lectures Creating Impact through Sustainability, Finance, and Information Technology Calling the Earth to Witness: Lessons on Artistic Ecologies, Threshold Crossing, Archival Fragments, Restless Topographies, and Learning Strangeness alongside Non-Human Collaborators FUNGI: Anarchist Designers Connecting Time, Space, Art, Culture, and Ecology through Landscape Design: A Holistic Learning Environment at the International French School in the Asian Context of Singapore DOA Symposium: Building/Community in the Tropics and Beyond Shaping Sonorous Worlds: Listening as Porous Practice Visualising Planetary Health - Frameworks of Lived Experience: Photojournalistic Field Pedagogies in Nepal Touch-Starved Touch Grass: Relearning Relationships in an Age of Acceleration Chiang Mai and the Sacred Mountain of DOI Suthep for World Heritage Nomination Bridging Biodiversity, Design, and Restoration The Living Tapestry of Chiang Mai’s Cultural Landscapes Clones, Zones, and Migrants: Politics, Migrations, and Possibilities of the Plant Nursery Trade MLA Options Studio Field Work Computational Waters: Restoration of the Headwaters in West Java through a Computational Volumetric Water Benefit Accounting Framework Highland Tapestry: Weaving Ecology, Community, and Economy in the Cameron Highlands Post Mega Games: Urban Surgical Planning of Former Tokyo Olympic Harumi Island The Overtourism Studio Holding Ground: Mangroves of Benoa Bay, Bali, Indonesia Living Currents: Reclaiming River Landscapes through Regenerative Tourism and Community Memory in Kuching, Sarawak Politics of Conservation: Navigating Socio-Ecological Territories of Chiang Mai Exhibitions and Events Social Design Lab Closing Reception NUS x UTokyo (Re)Reading Workshop at Memu Open Research Campus, Hokkaido MLA Pizza Party Planting Day This Will Be Something: Cinematic Cartographies of the Post-Rural NUS MLA Exhibition Explores the Socio-Ecological Landscapes of Chiang Mai at 2025 Design Week Singapore Art Week 2026 “Tumbling Abundance” by wasteXscape, in collaboration with Edible Garden City Landscape Architecture Gradshow 2026

Awards and Honours Championing Community and Ecology: NUS Team Wins First Place at CERF 2025 Hwang Yun Hye Wins Silver at SLAA for Campus Rewilding Research NUS Landscape Architecture Team Wins Bronze at SIP 9th Planning Awards MLA Students Showcase Thesis Projects at International Exhibition in Taiwan 12 Design Studio Sensing Landscape Coastal Imaginaries: From Abstraction to Experience Site Design Envisioning Everyday Life Digital (re)Designs Industrial Ecologies: Urban Infrastructure in Jurong Fifth Nature: Co-Designing Singapore’s Future Urban Form from Nature-Society Ecologies and Reserve Lands/Seas Post Mega Games: Urban Surgical Planning of Former Tokyo Olympic Harumi Island The Overtourism Studio Computational Waters: Restoration of the Headwaters in West Java through a Computational Volumetric Water Benefit Accounting Framework Highland Tapestry: Weaving Ecology, Community, and Economy in the Cameron Highlands Prosthetics for Novel Ecology Holding Ground: Mangroves of Benoa Bay, Bali, Indonesia Politics of Conservation: Navigating Socio-Ecological Territories of Chiang Mai Living Currents: Reclaiming River Landscapes through Regenerative Tourism and Community Memory in Kuching, Sarawak 44 Design Thesis Archive in Motion: Negotiating Landscape, Infrastructure, and Governance in Skeiðarársandur At the Edge of Fire: Eucalyptus-Based Strategies for Coexisting with Fire, Spatial Response to Changing Fire Regimes in the Blue Mountains Beyond the Garden Enclave: Redistributing Environmental Knowledge through Everyday Landscapes of Care Gardens of Neglect: Ruderal Reorganisation of Ecology, Time and Informality in Urban Ruins Revealing the Potential for Green: Retrofit Strategies for High-Density Urban Streetscapes in Ho Chi Minh City From Preferences to Places: A Computable, EvidenceLed Workflow for Redesigning Urban Parks From Bitter Roots to Living Routes: Reframing Coptis as a Living Corridor of Culture and Production Producing the Gir Lionscape: Redesigning Boundaries, Settlement Edges, and Tourist Encounters within a Manufactured Wildness Locality through Care: Reactivating Telajakan for Frangipani in Denpasar 55 Credits and Teaching Team

Forward

A Year in Review

Landscape (Architects) in Transformation

The academic year 2025–2026 has been one of critical engagement and shared discovery for NUS Landscape Architecture. Across classrooms, studios, field sites, exhibitions, and public events, students and faculty came together to advance the field of landscape architecture. Situated in Singapore—a living laboratory of urbanisation and landscape design—the Landscape Architecture programmes (BLA and MLA) continue to draw inspiration from our island city and its sea, while looking outward to the long-settled landscapes of Southeast Asia and beyond.

Landscapes are constantly undergoing transformation as they interact with human and non-human species; through plant succession, erosion, sedimentation, weathering, and geological processes that may be invisible to the naked eye. An understanding of these processes and what landscapes embody can be transformative as well. Landscapes, whether they are urban, rural, or everything in between, teach us about the forces of nature, the agency of human and non-human actors, and the scales of time and space beyond our footprints. The education of a landscape architect must embody the complexity and intricacy of these landscape processes. In this edition of our Landscape Architecture Yearbook, you will witness the content and pedagogies of our programme activities that engage with these complexities. These activities include studio fieldwork at sites ranging from the Cameron Highlands of Malaysia and the headwaters of rivers in West Java to Bali, Kuching, Chiang Mai, and Tokyo Bay, where students worked on issues of ecology, community, and economy as well as overtourism and the politics of conservation. They also include invited talks, workshops, exhibitions, and the work of our faculty members. Activities like these expand the profession’s narrative and invite us to reimagine the role of landscape architects in the changing landscapes. They remind us that landscape architects are not just designers of given sites. Instead, they are designers and planners of systems and structures that shape the ongoing processes of social, cultural, and environmental transformation. They contribute to the making of new imaginaries about our relationships with each other and the environment. We invite you to examine the work of our students and faculty in this volume, and we look forward to your support and feedback. Jeff Hou, PhD, FASLA Provost Chair Professor and Head Department of Architecture

This year, learning extended far beyond the studio. Through fieldwork and design research, students travelled to places as varied as the Cameron Highlands, Tokyo, Kota Bogor, Kuching, Chiang Mai, and Denpasar. In each location, they encountered landscapes in transition and developed new ways of shaping the relationships between the forcefulness of nature, uneven power, infrastructural legacies, and diverse societies. These experiences reinforced a core belief of the programme: that meaningful design emerges through careful observation, engagement, and learning from place. Our public lecture series enriched these conversations by bringing together designers, artists, researchers, and practitioners whose work challenged us to see landscapes otherwise. Discussions of planetary health, listening practices, sustainability, artistic ecologies, and community-building expanded our understanding of what landscape architecture can be and whom it can serve. The Design Thesis remains a highlight of the MLA journey. This year’s projects explored an extraordinary range of questions and

geographies, from glacial landscapes in Iceland and fire-adapted futures in Australia to cultural landscapes in Bali, India, China, and Vietnam. Together, these theses demonstrate the intellectual ambition of our graduating students, while showcasing design as a powerful form of research and knowledge-making. We are proud of the recognition received by our students and faculty, including awards at CERF 2025, the Singapore Landscape Architecture Awards, and the SIP 9th Planning Awards. The year was also marked by moments of celebration and exchange. The NUS Landscape Architecture Gradshow 2026, Singapore Art Week’s Tumbling Abundance, This Will Be Something: Cinematic Cartographies of the Post-Rural, and the NUS–University of Tokyo (Re)Reading Workshop at Memu Open Research Campus, Hokkaido provided opportunities to share ideas with wider audiences and strengthen international collaborations. Closer to home, Planting Day and the MLA Pizza Party reminded us that a vibrant academic community is built not only through projects and achievements, but also through friendship and collective effort. Together, these activities affirm NUS Landscape Architecture as a vibrant community of learning, research, and practice. By situating Singapore within wider Southeast Asian and global contexts, and by combining rigorous fieldwork with design-led research, the programme continues to cultivate landscape architects who are equipped to engage creatively, and responsibly with the multifaceted futures of our region and beyond. Victoria Jane Marshall, MLA Programme Director

PUBLIC LECTURES

Creating Impact through Sustainability, Finance, and Information Technology Stéphanie Groen 21st Aug 2025 SDE4, Level 5, Forum Corporate sustainability currently stands at a crossroad. Whilst organizations continue to pursue sustainability initiatives, it has become increasingly challenging to ensure that these efforts truly generate value and foster a positive impact in a world that is continually evolving it policies and priorities. In response to the increasing backlash against environmental, social, and governance (ESG) initiatives, this talk focused on the enduring business case for environmental efforts as a means of fostering long-term value creation for organisations. Stéphanie Groen examined the critical roles that sustainability, ﬁnance, and information technology (IT) play in facilitating the integration of sustainable practices and generating value for organizations.

Calling the Earth to Witness: Lessons on Artistic Ecologies, Threshold Crossing, Archival Fragments, Restless Topographies, and Learning Strangeness alongside Non-Human Collaborators Zarina Muhammad 29th Aug 2025 SDE4, Level 5, Forum This talk drew from Breathing in a World of Water // Calling the Earth to Witness, a transdisciplinary project tracing environmental histories and multispecies entanglements across archipelagic Southeast Asia. Grounded in artistic research and fieldwork, it engaged urban shorelines, intertidal zones, and coastal ecologies as living archives of ancestral knowledge, memory, and political contestation. Zarina Muhammad asked, how do we attune to a place’s silences, disappearances, and unrecorded histories? What happens when land and sea become living collaborators and timekeepers—when humility interrupts our habits of knowing, letting us approach the earth as witness?

FUNGI: Anarchist Designers Feifei Zhou 16th Sep 2025 SDE4, Level 5, Forum What does it really mean to “design with fungi”? Recently, fungi have captured public imagination, often portrayed as friendly, tasty, or easy to use. In design and architecture, mycelium has become a trendy material—celebrated much like concrete in the 1950s or plastic in the 1970s. Yet, this enthusiasm reduces fungi to another human resource, overlooking their complex ecological roles and evolutionary power. FUNGI, Anarchist Designers presents a different trajectory, viewing fungi as anarchist designers. From destroying plantations to wiping out species, fungi pose severe threats if underestimated. Yet they can become allies if we learn from their designs. Through research-based collaborations between scholars, artists, and designers, the lecture shows how fungi lead as designers.

Connecting Time, Space, Art, Culture, and Ecology through Landscape Design: A Holistic Learning Environment at the International French School in the Asian Context of Singapore Helen Smith-Yeo 7th Oct 2025 SDE4, Level 5, Forum Education transfers knowledge, skills, and values to shape individuals and societies. This lecture focuses on how landscape architecture creates a holistic pedagogic environment—forging links to nature, ecology, history, culture, art, and collective memory. The International French School Singapore (IFS) educates students from kindergarten to baccalaureate, its multilayered landscape and distinct French-Asian identity distinguishing it from other international schools. As principal landscape architect, Helen Smith-Yeo guided IFS’s evolution with a singular vision— weaving physical, intellectual, artistic, cultural, and spiritual connections through Time, Space, Art, Culture, and Ecology to awaken young minds.

PUBLIC LECTURES

DOA Symposium: Building/Community in the Tropics and Beyond 27th Jan 2026 SDE3, Level 1, Exhibition Space

Shaping Sonorous Worlds: Listening as Porous Practice Zai Tang 11th Mar 2026 SDE 3, Level 4, LT427

Site specificity guides design, yet what defines a “site” remains contested. Recent scholarship embraces local, indigenous, and traditional practices to critique modernist legacies of uniformity and standardization. Still, we must navigate how tropical contexts were shaped by colonialism, resistance, and cultural hybridity. How should design professions engage historical conditions inhabiting the present? Who are the communities we work with, design for, and practice within?

Artist Zai Tang builds sonic worlds for dance, movingimage, and immersive installations. Highlighting listening as an affective mode of relation toward more-thanhuman worlds, Zai covers field and studio practices— where he visualizes recorded sounds through drawing and animation. He illustrates his methodology through Brodal Serei (2016), inspired by Khmer boxing; Escape Velocity (2018–2021), examining Singapore’s relationship with nature; and field notes from Biji Biji Buaya Crocodile Seeds, concerning crocodile spirit ecologies.

The symposium Building Communities in the Tropics and Beyond probes these questions. Gathering artists, academics, and practitioners, it examines how design engages identity, place, and indigeneity—addressing displacement, erasure, non-extractive integration of traditional knowledge, institutional constraints, and ultimately, authorship.

The session concludes with a screening of Migrant Ecologies Projects’ short film, {if your bait can sing the wild one will come} Like Shadows Through Leaves (2021).

Visualising Planetary Health - Frameworks of Lived Experience: Photojournalistic Field Pedagogies in Nepal Tom White 18th Mar 2026 SDE4, Level 5, Forum How do we confront climate, biodiversity, and equity crises together? This lecture draws from a transdisciplinary field school in Nepal along a Himalayan transect. Operationalizing Planetary Health and Doughnut Economics through visual ethnography, participants used photography as a reflective “visual notebook” in the research—combining imagemaking, journaling, and thematic coding to articulate complex sustainability challenges with clarity. The lecture explore how place-based, visual pedagogies foster systems thinking, ethical awareness, and intercultural engagement. Moving beyond abstract “green” rhetoric, the participatory methods presented enabled grounded, justice-oriented sustainability—coproducing knowledge alongside local communities to drive inclusive, transformative development.

Touch-Starved Touch Grass: Relearning Relationships in an Age of Acceleration Salad Dressing Landscape - Chang Huai-yan 8th Apr 2026 During the early pandemic, grass grew longer and roadside vegetation thickened. Briefly extricated from routine maintenance, urban nature began to shift; “rewilding” crept into our collective psyche. Isolation intensified, yet connection accelerated; we asked quieter questions about our place in the wider web of life. Landscapes sit where worlds overlap. Plants signal through colour and chemistry; each organism moves through its own umwelt. Signals move through water, soil, air and fibre-optic cables. Organisms are assemblages; the same forces that isolated us connect us. Life resembles a restless communication field, where human perception glimpses the network in which it is embedded.

IN CLASS LECTURES Chiang Mai and the Sacred Mountain of DOI Suthep for World Heritage Nomination Dr. Worrasit Tantinipankul 14th Aug 2025

Bridging Biodiversity, Design, and Restoration Camphora 27th Aug 2025

The Living Tapestry of Chiang Mai’s Cultural Landscapes Dr. Warong Wonglangka 11th Sep 2025

Clones, Zones, and Migrants: Politics, Migrations, and Possibilities of the Plant Nursery Trade Leah Kahler 28th Oct 2025

MLA OPTIONS STUDIO FIELD WORK

EXHIBITIONS AND EVENTS Social Design Lab Closing Reception

LA4702 / LAD4010

MLA Studio City/Design 8 Computational Waters: Restoration of the Headwaters in West Java through a Computational Volumetric Water Benefit Accounting Framework

19 - 20th Oct 2025 DOA Bodhi Garden

LA4702 / LAD4010

LA5701

MLA Studio City/ Design 8

MLA Studio Country

NUS x UTokyo (Re) Reading Workshop

Holding Ground: Mangroves of Benoa Bay, Bali, Indonesia

26th Jul - 4th Aug 2025 Memu Open Research Campus, Hokkaido

LA4702 / LAD4010

LA5701

MLA Studio City/ Design 8

MLA Studio Country

MLA Pizza Party

Highland Tapestry: Weaving Ecology, Community, and Economy in the Cameron Highlands

Post Mega Games: Urban Surgical Planning of Former Tokyo Olympic Harumi Island

Living Currents: Reclaiming River Landscapes through Regenerative Tourism and Community Memory in Kuching, Sarawak

LA4702 / LAD4010 / AR5802

LA5701

MLA Studio City/ Design 8: The Overtourism Studio

MLA Studio Country

The Overtourism Studio

5th Mar 2025, SDE 3, Level 1, Gallery

Politics of Conservation: Navigating Socio-ecological Territories of Chiang Mai

This Will Be Something: Cinematic Cartographies of the Post-Rural by Victoria Jane Marshall and Carlos G. Gomez

11th Aug 2025, SDE4 Rain Garden

NUS MLA Exhibition Explores the SocioEcological Landscapes of Chiang Mai at 2025 Design Week 12th Dec 2025 - 12th Jan 2026, Lanna Architecture Centre

Singapore Art Week 2026 “Tumbling Abundance” by wasteXscape, in collaboration with Edible Garden City 22nd Jan 2025 - 22nd Feb 2026, Funan Mall Level 7

Planting Day 25th Sep 2025, 28th Nov 2025, 27th Feb 2026 and 23rd Apr 2026 Nasi Ulam Forest Garden Maintenance Team

Landscape Architecture Gradshow 2026 15th May - 15th Jun 2026 SDE 3, Level 1, Exhibition Space

AWARDS AND HONOURS

Championing Community and Ecology: NUS Team Wins First Place at CERF 2025 An interdisciplinary team from the Architecture and Landscape Architecture programmes has clinched first place at the Coastal and Estuarine Research Federation (CERF) 2025 Student Design Competition with their project Cultivating Resilience. Developed from May to November 2025 as part of an extracurricular design initiative, the project demonstrates innovative approaches to coastal and estuarine resilience. Lina Altoaimi (Team Lead) Year: BLA Alumni, Class of 2025

Ho Qian Yu Year: BLA Alumni, Class of 2025

Kaena Sutanu (Co-presenter) Year: BLA Alumni, Class of 2025

Lee Wen Qi Sherly Year: BLA Alumni, Class of 2025

Vedika Gupta (Co-presenter) Year: BA Arch + MUP, Year 4

Seah Yun Zhang Deston Year: BLA Alumni, Class of 2025 Toh Tze Hwee Chloe Year: BLA Year 3

Hwang Yun Hye Wins Silver at SLAA for Campus Rewilding Research Congratulations to Associate Professor Hwang Yun Hye on winning Silver in the Research, Analysis & Planning category at the Singapore Landscape Architecture Awards (SLAA). Her project Rewilding Campus as a Sustainable Landscape Design and Management Guideline establishes ecologically sustainable guidelines grounded in a decade of research. Examining how rewilding boosts native flora and fauna, environmental benefits, and stakeholder engagement, the project spans four university campus plots. By suspending regular mowing, manicured lawns naturalized into gardens. Each plot received site-specific maintenance: minimal intervention for Plots A and D, strategic planting for Plot B, and selective maintenance for Plot C. Minimal construction—wooden walkways, recycled paving, and signage—supported the living lab for environmental education. Multidisciplinary teams monitored landscape shifts, including biodiversity, microclimate, soil quality, and public perception. Drawing on these findings, the team developed actionable guidelines for implementing rewilding across other educational institutions in Singapore.

NUS Landscape Architecture Team Wins Bronze at SIP 9th Planning Awards A team of Landscape Architecture students earned a Bronze Award at the Singapore Institute of Planners’ 9th Planning Awards in the Outstanding Student Projects category. Their studio project Land Sharing+: Prototyping Mixed-Use Landscapes in Sheung Shui, Hong Kong was completed as part of their Bachelor and Master of Landscape Architecture programs. Kudos to Lina Altoaimi, Mariam Yusuf Rajkotwala, and Pan Yuwen. The design studio focused on patternprocess-function analysis, examining five key layers for each iteration: biodiversity, hydrology, climate, health, and economy. Urban and natural patterns were analyzed using computational models that produced 16 measurable urban indicators and four projected quantitative functions—including bird species richness, flood mitigation, and land surface temperature reduction. Values were compared across existing conditions, government master plans, and design iterations to maximize overall benefits. Land Sharing+ defines a novel compact city model, adopting a landscape-first approach that treats natural systems as critical building blocks.

MLA Students Showcase Thesis Projects at International Exhibition in Taiwan Two Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA) final-year students from the Department of Architecture, Wayne Tan Pei Wee and Li Xiyuan, had their thesis projects selected for the 12th Landscape Architecture Student Graduation Exhibition & International Student Exhibition, held at the Songshan Cultural and Creative Park in Taipei from 29 May to 1 June 2026. Wayne’s project, Rethinking Landscape Maintenance as Regimes of Care: Multi-Agency Governance in ABC Waters, supervised by Assist Prof Dorothy Tang, reframes maintenance in Singapore’s ABC Waters Programme as a site of shared care and governance among the agencies and communities involved. Xiyuan’s project, Curated Relics: Interpreting Shanxi’s Abandoned Villages, supervised by Dr Maxime Decaudin, explores how the remains of depopulated villages in Shanxi, China, can be read as landscapes of memory and heritage.

Design

Studio

SENSING LANDSCAPE LAD1001 - Design 1

Tutors:

Hwang Yun Hye, Brownyn Tan, Faiz Zohri

Weathered Heights by Tammy Oh Yiling (BLA 1) reframed weathering as a generative landscape process, revealing the textures, fractures, and forms produced through geological change. Transforming a cliff into a vertical park, the project integrated rock climbing with intimate encounters with exposed stone, inviting visitors to experience erosion, materiality, and geological time through movement.

Flow of Water, Energy of Emotions by Lee Ying Qi (BLA 1) explored water as both a physical force and an emotional medium, using topography to choreograph its shifting, unpredictable movements. By intensifying sensory encounters with flow, sound, reflection, and change, the project transformed the landscape into an immersive field where hydrological processes evoked instinctive and evolving emotional responses.

This foundation-level core studio, Sensing Landscape, introduced students to the concept of “landscape as process,” understood as a dynamic relationship between humans and nature that evolves through the continual shaping of physical, social, and cultural environments. The studio emphasized spatial literacy, systemic design thinking, and the development of a landscape architectural vocabulary through observation, interpretation, and synthesis. Three interrelated exercises structured the course. Sense Landscapes focused on documenting the spatial and experiential qualities of selected natural elements through sensory observation and an awareness of ephemerality. Deconstruct Landscapes employed phenomenological approaches to examine how these elements operate within a larger spatial composition, leading to the development of landscape prototypes that expressed their spatial and functional values. Finally, Reassemble Landscapes asked students to iteratively create hybrid spaces in which human use and natural landscape elements coexist, integrating spatial form, experiential qualities, and temporal change.

Love at First Light by Maegan Callista Husodo (BLA 1) explored the shifting interplay of sunlight, shadow, and time through the layered medium of tree canopies. By introducing walking nets and carefully configured trees, the project choreographed changing encounters with light, transforming the park into a temporal landscape where illumination, movement, and seasonal rhythms continually reshaped spatial experience.

COASTAL IMAGINARIES: FROM ABSTRACTION TO EXPERIENCE LAD1005 - Design 2

Tutors:

Maxime Decaudin, Faiz Zohri, Lehana Guo

Exposure, Horizons, Vistas by Muhammad Hariz Bin Nasaruddin Shah (BLA 1) proposed a renewed coastal sequence for West Coast Park, aligning the horizons of sea and highway through an axial path. Topography, vegetation, and reflective surfaces choreographed alternating moments of exposure and concealment, framing distant vistas while constructing a layered spatial dialogue between movement, infrastructure, and the coast.

Clearing In-Between by Damien Koh Chenjun (BLA 1) investigated habitability as an embodied sense of safety within wilderness, where layered vegetation formed shifting degrees of enclosure and refuge. Subtle traces of human inhabitation introduced familiarity into the unfamiliar, transforming the landscape into an in-between condition where exposure, comfort, and belonging were continuously negotiated.

The Coastal Imaginaries studio introduced conceptual development as a central process in landscape architectural design. Rather than approaching design as the application of predetermined forms or programs, the studio emphasized inquiry, abstraction, iteration, and representation as methods for developing and refining design ideas. Across three projects, students explored how concepts emerge through observation, speculation, drawing, mapping, and modelmaking before being translated into spatial propositions. Project One introduced abstraction through cinematic analysis, coastal mapping, and conceptual model studies. Project Two situated these ideas within West Coast Park, where students developed experiential interventions in response to specific site conditions. Project Three focused on representation, scale, accuracy, and drawing conventions as tools for refining and communicating design intent. Throughout the studio, drawings and models functioned as active thinking tools, enabling students to identify relationships, test spatial ideas, and develop foundational skills in site reading, spatial reasoning, concept-driven design, and representation.

Port Garden by Tee Lei (BLA 1) reimagined Pasir Panjang Port through adaptive reuse, transforming its industrial language into a coastal garden landscape. Raised platforms, cargo-inspired planters, and calibrated planting heights reshaped spatial thresholds, allowing the project to retain traces of port infrastructure while evoking the layered, transitional qualities of the waterfront.

SITE DESIGN LAD2006 - Design 3

Tutors:

Lin Yifeng, Varit Charoenveingvechkit, Victor Kuan, Jasmine Tay, Zihao Wong

Ephemeral by Uresh Kumar S/O Savoger Rajah (BLA 2) cultivated a communitymanaged landscape that softened urban hardness through evolving ecologies and seasonal change. Softscape interventions and hand-drawn textures inscribed traces of time across the site, allowing memory, stewardship, and ecological rhythms to continually reshape the landscape as a living and transient collective environment.

Quiet Mounds, Open Grounds by Javin Yeo Thiam Lok (BLA 2) negotiated a landscape of privacy and openness from the urban patterns observed on site. Through sculpted landforms and layered vegetation, the design modulated enclosure, visibility, and movement, creating pockets of retreat within an open field and allowing intimate occupation to emerge alongside shared public space.

The Site Design studio focused on the transformation of landscapes through the interpretation of site conditions, spatial relationships, and dynamic processes. The studio framed site design through three interconnected perspectives: morphological, ambient, and participatory components. Morphological components examined the physical structure of landscapes, including topography, vegetation, circulation, built elements, water systems, and spatial organization. Ambient components addressed experiential and environmental qualities such as light, sound, microclimate, airflow, materiality, and temporal change. Participatory components expanded the understanding of landscape actors to include humans, flora, fauna, soils, microorganisms, and natural forces. Through these perspectives, students explored how spatial form, ecological processes, human activities, and sensory conditions interact and evolve. The studio developed foundational skills in spatial and experiential design, programming, and temporal thinking, while emphasizing the effective communication of design intentions through drawings, digital representations, and physical models.

Nocturne Commons by Paul Yee Ze En (BLA 2) staged a nocturnal commons where darkness became an ecological and spatial identity rather than an absence. Low canopies sheltered bats, soft mounds accommodated human retreat, and fruiting trees sustained wildlife, composing a shared sanctuary in which light, shadow, species, and habitation coexisted across the night landscape.

ENVISIONING EVERYDAY LIFE LAD2007 - Design 4

Janice Tung, Larry Yeung Man Ki, Varit Charoenveingvechkit, Evi Syariffudin, Wong Ruen Qing Tutors:

Transient Occupations by Uresh Kumar S/O Savoger Rajah (BLA 2) converted vacant retail units in Limbang Shopping Centre into adaptable social infrastructure through a lightweight modular system. Flexible spatial insertions accommodated everyday interaction, informal gathering, and community-led care, allowing underused interiors to support shifting patterns of occupation while remaining open to change, appropriation, and collective use.

Rotational Fabric by Bian Chu Qi (BLA 2) transformed vacant rental housing units into an evolving network of community spaces shaped by flexible programs and shared use. Designed for children, elderly residents, and neighbors, the project built a rotational social fabric through resident participation and sustained collaboration with NGOs and socially oriented organizations.

The Envisioning Everyday Life studio examined urban open spaces as socially dynamic landscapes shaped by everyday practices, negotiation, and diverse forms of occupation. Moving beyond an emphasis on ecological and environmental performance alone, the studio explored how public spaces reflect social norms, power relations, and lived realities. Participatory and community engagement methods were introduced as ways of observing, listening to, and understanding how spaces are used, adapted, and cared for over time. The studio also framed design as a practice of care, emphasizing spatial equity, inclusion, accessibility, dignity, and long-term stewardship. Students were encouraged to recognize users as active collaborators rather than passive recipients of design and to respond to the social, cultural, and institutional contexts that shape everyday life. Through this approach, Envisioning Everyday Life positioned landscape architecture and urban design as evolving processes capable of supporting multiple interpretations, relationships, and forms of public life.

Rituals of Food by Paul Yee Ze En (BLA 2) organized a closed-loop food system for Limbang’s rental community, linking growing, harvesting, cooking, composting, and regeneration into a shared spatial ritual. Through these recurring acts, the project turned food production into social infrastructure, restoring not only sustenance but also trust, dignity, reciprocity, and a renewed sense of belonging.

DIGITAL (RE)DESIGNS LAD3001 - Design 5

Tutors:

Jasmine Tay, Ruen Qing Wong, Quentin Sim

NOISEBOUND by Huixuan Liw (BLA 3) orchestrated a sensory transformation of the underutilized viaduct spaces at Chong Pang into layered acoustic sanctuaries. Through the strategic employment of woven spatial structures designed to diffuse harsh traffic infrastructure noise, the intervention curated a sequence of Active, Social, and Reflection zones that re-established a harmonious visceral connection with the urban surroundings.

Soul Forest by Layla Grace O’Connor (BLA 3) proposed a living memorial park that extended remembrance beyond the spatial limits of conventional afterlife landscapes. Memorial trees, nourished by soil integrated with relatives’ ashes, gradually established a Miyawaki-style forest, allowing the site to evolve across generations from individual commemoration into a collective landscape of continuity, renewal, and memory.

The Digital (re)Designs studio focused on digitally driven landscape architectural tools and techniques. The specific aim of this studio was to provide the necessary exposure to state-of-the-art technologies and techniques, including digitally driven site data acquisition, analysis, and form making, as well as visual representations. It was organized into a series of workshops that exposed students to a range of innovative and potentially paradigm-shifting digital tools and techniques. Underlying this digital focus was the idea of using play as a driver in landscape design, or “playscapes.” Here, the students were not confining themselves to any particular demographic but rather looking at designed landscapes as a public amenity designed for the enjoyment of its users. It also looked at how play-driven landscapes can potentially activate spaces, bring about a higher level of attachment, and serve to create connections between people and the landscapes they play in.

BioSpine by Darren Lee Wei Jun (BLA 3) configured the underused Chong Pang viaduct as an elderly-centric community spine for active aging, productive gardening, fitness, and social exchange. Parametric planning, pedestrian movement data, and Voronoi-based spatial logic organized fragmented spaces into an accessible network, strengthening connectivity, well-being, and everyday neighborhood life.

INDUSTRIAL ECOLOGIES: URBAN INFRASTRUCTURE IN JURONG LAD3002 - Design 6

Tutors:

Dorothy Tang, Lyn Liu, Agnes Soh, Mel Yip

Papaya Protocols by Lin Yang (BLA 3) reconfigured pharmaceutical landscapes across Tuas and Southeast Asia by tracing the infrastructures, logistics, and supply chains that sustained healthcare. Linking localized production territories to regional systems of access, the project proposed landscape as an operational framework for redistributing resources, connectivity, and spatial care toward a more equitable healthcare network.

SUPERCHARGING THE WIND by Layla Grace O’Connor (BLA 3) integrated eVTOL mobility into a regional maritime network, consolidating passenger, logistical, military, and coast guard operations within a shared aerial port. By redirecting minor sea-based transit to the air and pairing infrastructure with hospitality and recreation, the proposal linked cleaner waters with a broader business and leisure landscape.

The Industrial Ecologies studio explored the relationship between industrial systems, infrastructure, and landscape architecture at an urban and planning scale. By tracing material flows from resource extraction to production and consumption, students examined how resources, labor, infrastructure, and economic policy shape contemporary landscapes. The studio addressed the social, environmental, and spatial consequences of industrial development, with particular attention to resource constraints, infrastructural vulnerability, and questions of spatial and environmental justice in Singapore. Students were asked to retrofit existing infrastructure and develop multifunctional landscape systems that integrated ecological functions with engineering requirements. Working at an increased scale and level of complexity, the studio encouraged critical reflection on the agency of landscape interventions within industrial planning and resilient urban development. Through mapping, spatial analysis, and multiple modes of representation, students strengthened their ability to translate complex infrastructural relationships into coherent landscape strategies and design proposals.

Su(fish)ency by Dian Firzanah Binte Mohammad Azlan (BLA 3) established an estuarine fish-harvesting system that operated through ecological interdependence rather than intensive production. By cultivating fish alongside seaweed and shellfish, the project simulated the dynamics of a natural fishery, positioning existing biodiversity as both infrastructure and agent within a self-supporting productive landscape.

FIFTH NATURE: CO-DESIGNING SINGAPORE’S FUTURE URBAN FORM FROM NATURE-SOCIETY ECOLOGIES & RESERVE LANDS/SEAS LAD4008 Design 7 / LA4701 MLA Studio: Quarter

Victoria Jane Marshall, Lehana Guo, Gu Tiantong, Wai Hon Tham, Janice Tung Tutors:

The Anatomy of the Intertidal by Lee Luyi (BLA 4) conceived the intertidal landscape as a living metabolism shared between human and nonhuman actors. Repurposing ghost nets as ecological infrastructure, the project embedded human occupation within a larger environmental organism, recasting development as a reciprocal process of exchange, adaptation, and regeneration across the shifting coastal edge.

The Three Engines of Everyday Urban Life by Gao Xinyu (MLA 1) integrated mobility, wellness, and learning infrastructures into an inclusive landscape system for Jurong West. Designed around the everyday needs of delivery workers, the project organized support networks across the neighborhood while reinforcing accessibility, social connection, and community resilience through a more responsive model of urban life.

earthing. by Dang Van Trang (BLA 4) grounded Singapore’s seemingly “finished” landscapes in a Fifth Nature where soil was treated as a living partner rather than passive substrate. By recasting maintenance as a participatory practice, the project cultivated an ever-changing ground co-produced by human and nonhuman actors through care, disturbance, adaptation, and time.

The Fifth Nature studio explored evolving relationships between nature, society, urban policy, and landscape practice in Singapore. Building on four state-led nature–society ecologies—Garden City, City in a Garden, City in Nature, and GoGreen SG—the studio asked students to imagine alternative “fifth nature” practices responsive to contemporary social and ecological conditions. Positioned between design and policy, the studio approached landscape architecture as a form of creative research capable of influencing how nature–society relations are understood and spatially expressed. Students developed locality-based proposals through theory, fieldwork, mapping, drawing, and other exploratory media, with an emphasis on incremental transformation rather than fixed master planning. The studio also introduced more-than-human perspectives, encouraging consideration of nonhuman agency, situated knowledge, and relational ecological processes. Through individual and collective research, Fifth Nature encouraged speculative yet site-specific approaches to future urban form, landscape practice, and ecological coexistence.

The Last Sand Barge by Li Jingyao (MLA 1) revealed the concealed costs of Singapore’s reclaimed shoreline by tracing the loss of coasts, ecosystems, and lives through extraction. As a Fifth Nature, the sand barge became a reflective landscape that materialized resource finitude, confronted the consequences of reclamation, and questioned the trajectories of future urban expansion.

POST MEGA GAMES: URBAN SURGICAL PLANNING OF FORMER TOKYO OLYMPIC HARUMI ISLAND LAD4010 DESIGN 8 / LA4702 MLA Studio: City Option Studio I

Tutor:

Yifeng Lin

Softening the Void By Wu Han (MLA 1) softened Harumi’s oversized open spaces through an adaptive edge strategy that activated inactive frontages as ecological and social interfaces. Meadow occupation, phased public use, and distributed everyday landscapes gradually seeded new forms of encounter, transforming residual voids into more porous, inhabited, and responsive urban ground.

Island of Encounter by Yu Yun (MLA 1) reconnected fragmented public spaces across Tsukishima and Harumi through a cohesive loop landscape system. Translating recurring social conditions into specific, landform-based encounter spaces, the intervention established a dynamic spatial framework that actively fostered daily interaction, seasonal community events, and continuous waterfront engagement.

The Post Mega Games studio critically examined the long-term urban and landscape conditions emerging after large-scale international sporting events, using Tokyo’s 2020 Olympic Village on Harumi Island as its primary site of investigation. Rather than treating the official redevelopment plan as a fixed outcome, students evaluated its underlying assumptions, spatial performance, and limitations while developing alternative strategies for future adaptation. Framed through the idea of urban surgical planning, the studio approached Harumi as a living urban system requiring careful diagnosis and targeted intervention. Landscape architecture was positioned as a strategic medium for addressing ecological, social, and infrastructural conditions beyond conventional master planning. approaches. Through site analysis, critical evaluation, and landscape-led planning, students explored how selective interventions could support long-term urban operation, resilience, and sustainable transformation. The studio encouraged students to reconsider post-megaevent redevelopment as an adaptive and evolving process rather than a singular act of comprehensive planning.

Stitching Everyday Belonging by Zhao Fuhan (MLA 1) stitched Harumi’s fragmented communities together through intersections, slow-mobility networks, and everyday public spaces. By threading movement with opportunities for repeated encounter, the project cultivated belonging through ordinary routines, transforming disconnected urban fragments into a more continuous social landscape shaped by familiarity, proximity, and daily participation.

THE OVERTOURISM STUDIO LAD4010 DESIGN 8 / LA4702 MLA Studio: City Option Studio II

Tutor:

Victoria Jane Marshall

Matter In Place by Calyn Chia (BLA 4) repositioned textile and organic waste as material agents within the conserved paddy landscape. Through accumulation, decomposition, and collective participation, discarded matter gradually generated new public ecologies, transforming waste from a residual by-product into an active medium for ecological succession, spatial change, and renewed environmental perception.

Tepi Sungai Crossings by Yan Linhao (MLA 1) bridged neglected riverbanks through a network of small crossings and activity pockets that redirected everyday movement along the water’s edge. By stitching circulation with moments of pause and occupation, the project activated overlooked riparian spaces and integrated the river more closely into the rhythms of daily life.

Cultivating Commons by Bao Yihan (MLA 1) cultivated the edges of a subak-managed paddy field as a plant-led commons where agriculture and public life coexisted. Designed planting corridors extended beyond monocrop production, choreographing movement, succession, and exchange while preserving cultivation and sustaining a flexible peri-urban landscape shaped by ecological and social hybridity.

Centered on the periurban landscapes of Denpasar, Bali, the Overtourism Studio investigated the spatial, social, and environmental consequences of tourism-led development. Working in a district where residents expressed concern about conventional tourism expansion, the studio examined the conditions that produce overtourism and the underlying relationships between land, power, urbanization, and nature. Students were encouraged to approach the site through creative design research rather than conventional tourism or development narratives. Drawing on urban and nature theory, the studio focused on developing alternative ways of understanding and intervening in peri-urban transformation. Final projects explored experimental research methods, spatial narratives, and landscape tactics capable of responding to local concerns and contested development pressures. As a joint studio involving architecture and landscape architecture students, the Overtourism Studio also encouraged interdisciplinary perspectives on how design might engage with tourism, urban change, and the future of periurban practice.

Taste in Time by Clara Choo (BLA 4) converted peri-urban rice fields in Denpasar into a culinary landscape where cultivation, production, and consumption were closely entwined. Diversified crops and community-led food systems anchored evolving culinary tastes within the land, offering an alternative to conversion while sustaining agricultural identity through collective and localized practices.

COMPUTATIONAL WATERS: RESTORATION OF THE HEADWATERS IN WEST JAVA THROUGH A COMPUTATIONAL VOLUMETRIC WATER BENEFIT ACCOUNTING FRAMEWORK LAD4010 DESIGN 8 / LA4702 MLA Studio: City Option Studio III

Tutor:

Ervine Lin

OpenDroneMap Point Cloud Reconstruction by Li Yuanhao (MLA 1) generated an orthophoto by stitching together a series of drone-captured images and processed the data using open-source ODM software to produce a point cloud and an initial classification. However, the resulting point cloud still contained numerous artifacts and noise. The data refinement process involved simplifying the dataset into a 10-meter grid to facilitate manual section inspection and outlier removal. Finally, the terrain was fitted using a massing model to regenerate the terrain mesh.

Botanical Localized WATER Circulatory Kaleidoscope by Chen Qingsong (MLA 1) wove a Decentralized Wastewater Treatment System (DEWATS) into the fabric of a West Javanese headwater village. Cascading wetlands and circular irrigation transformed blackwater into ecological and economic value, recasting sanitation infrastructure as a productive landscape that supported water recovery, cultivation, and everyday village resilience.

Purifying Gradient by Liu Yunqi (MLA 1) converted West Java’s paddy fields into a landscape-scale filtration system that captured, cleansed, and stored harvested rainwater. Working through a gradient of natural filters, the project recirculated purified water for irrigation and domestic use, coupling agricultural ground with decentralized water infrastructure and strengthening local water resilience.

Anchored in the upstream landscapes of the West Java–Jakarta headwaters, the Computational Waters studio combined landscape design with computational modeling to address regional water security challenges. Developed in collaboration with Conservation International, and Konservasi Indonesia, the studio applied the Volumetric Water Benefit Accounting (VWBA 2.0) framework to evaluate measurable hydrological outcomes. Students investigated how upstream degradation contributes to downstream problems, including flooding, limited water supply, and declining water quality. Using simulations, algorithms, scripts, and computational workflows, they translated VWBA principles into methods for testing and predicting the water benefits of site-specific design proposals. The studio emphasized scientific and design rigor while accounting for real-world environmental and implementation constraints. At the same time, students were encouraged to develop alternative and imaginative proposals that could communicate environmental value to investors, stakeholders, and the public while supporting habitat conservation and regional water stewardship.

Gravity-Driven Productive Terrace by Li Jingyao (MLA 1) terraced the Ciloto hillside into a gravity-driven productive landscape that slowed, stored, and cleansed runoff while sustaining agriculture. Water flows were coupled with cultivation and community life, allowing hydrological infrastructure to become productive ground and forming a resilient, multifunctional landscape shaped by slope, gravity, and seasonal change.

HIGHLAND TAPESTRY: WEAVING ECOLOGY, COMMUNITY, AND ECONOMY IN THE CAMERON HIGHLANDS LAD4010 DESIGN 8 / LA4702 MLA Studio: City Option Studio IV

Tutor:

Hwang Yun Hye

un-Berry-lievable by Khoo Zhi Luo (BLA 4) proposed a climate-adaptive agricultural system that responded to overdevelopment and the widespread, resource-dependent strawberry farming industry in Cameron Highlands. By utilising rainfall, humidity, and cloud forest conditions, while rewilding farmland and creating ecological buffers, the project formed a circular, locally grounded resource network.

TRAIL 10+: BEYOND MOVEMENT by Boddapati Krishna Sri (MLA 1) reconfigured the jungle trail 10 in the Cameron Highlands into an adaptive, sensitive ecological corridor. Responding to the microclimates of primary mossy forest, complex terrains, severe erosion, and seasonal fluctuations, the design deployed systemic soil stabilization and habitat protection. By integrating indigenous movement patterns with interactive digital technologies, the intervention choreographed a resilient landscape that transformed a simple path of transit into a profound matrix of flow, pause, and environmental interaction.

The Highlands Tapestry studio focused on Tana Rata Town in Cameron Highlands—a high-altitude plateau where the rapid expansion of agro-tourism and commercial farming threatens the region’s signature cool climate and ecological stability. Students’ works demonstrated how interdisciplinary research, integrating geospatial mapping, ethnographic fieldwork, and scientific data analysis, can be applied to envision resilient futures. In this exploratory setting, students engaged with critical literature from geography and anthropology to spatialize socio-ecological frictions and develop scenariobased design strategies. This approach enabled a deep immersion into the “Highland Tapestry,” facilitating proposals that weave together ecological restoration, economic viability, and socio-cultural equity, underscoring the role of landscape architecture in advocating for sustainable development in Southeast Asia’s highland regions.

Carnation Commons by Ng Jun Hao (BLA 4) reimagined Carnation Park’s forest-edge residential landscape as resident-led shared productive spaces. By transforming underused land into moss cultivation areas, native plant nurseries, and fallen-material craft zones, the project reconnected montane forest ecology with everyday community life, supporting collective stewardship, local exchange, and neighbourhood-scale commons.

PROSTHETICS FOR NOVEL ECOLOGY LAD4010 DESIGN 8 / LA4702 MLA Studio: City Option studio V

Tutor:

Joshua Comaroff

Meditate into Assemblage by Dong Yukun (BLA 4) assembled human and nonhuman agencies to mediate the antagonisms embedded within urban development. Working between regulated campus maintenance and forest-cemetery succession, the project redirected forces of control and erasure into ecological momentum, sustaining multispecies life through adaptation, negotiation, and continual transformation across time.

Litter Reboot: The Reboot of Soil Metabolic Autonomy by Ding Hao (MLA 1) rebooted a Park Connector Network as a regenerative soil system rather than a “clear-and-dispose” maintenance burden. In-situ modules recycled leaf litter and closed disrupted nutrient loops, enabling landscape self-repair while repositioning maintenance as an active ecological process that built long-term soil autonomy and resilience.

Responding to Singapore’s condition as a “novel ecology,” the Prosthetics for Novel Ecology studio explored how landscape design might repair fragmented ecological relationships without relying on nostalgic ideas of rewilding. The studio focused on disrupted processes such as missing pollination links, flood-prone hydrology, and urban heat, proposing prostheses as a design method for inserting small-scale interventions into existing landscapes. In the first phase, mixed teams of architecture and landscape architecture students documented broken environmental processes through photography, film, and analytical drawing before designing and fabricating micro-architectures using 3D printing and other material methods. These interventions were then monitored for both ecological performance and spatial effect. In the second phase, students scaled selected prosthetic strategies into larger landscape-architecture hybrids across sites such as coastlines, drainage infrastructure, lawns, parks, and secondary forests. The studio combined ecological repair, prototyping, material experimentation, and interdisciplinary design research.

Insect Dwelling Fence by Zhong Chenyang (MLA 1) wove layered insect habitats into fragmented forest-residential edges, transforming the fence from a boundary into a living ecological corridor. By guiding migration and supporting species movement across disturbed urban interfaces, the project reconnected fragile ecological cycles and strengthened continuity between residential landscapes and adjacent forest systems.

HOLDING GROUND: MANGROVES OF BENOA BAY, BALI, INDONESIA LA5701 MLA Studio: Country Option Studio I

Tutor:

Evi Syariffudin

Reweaving the Field by Wu Qingyi (MLA 2) rewove Denpasar’s urban riverbanks into a living prototype for Subak education and ecological regeneration. Wetland purification, water recycling, productive farmland, and public space were integrated into a shared landscape system that restored river health while reconnecting water stewardship, agricultural knowledge, and community livelihoods.

Mangrove Hub by Wang Wenhao (MLA 2) anchored Benoa Bay within a wider mangrove restoration network by repurposing its old port as a nursery and distribution hub. The project propagated saplings for deployment across Indonesia while integrating ecological restoration, education, tourism, and volunteerism into a shared landscape infrastructure that extended conservation beyond the site itself.

Framed by the ecological and territorial complexity of mangrove landscapes, the Holding Ground studio examined how landscape architecture can mediate between hydro-ecological systems, socioeconomic demands, and long-term climate pressures. The studio treated mangroves as transitional environments where coastal adaptation, biodiversity conservation, aquaculture, urbanization, cultural heritage, and economic viability frequently come into conflict. Students investigated how restoration strategies might coexist with development through new settlement patterns, landscape typologies, and nature-based solutions. Particular emphasis was placed on long-term speculation, with proposals extending across 20-, 50-, and 100-year horizons while remaining grounded in rigorous inquiry into technological, ecological, and social change. Students were encouraged to formulate design questions around thresholds, density, productivity, and coexistence, rather than treating restoration as an isolated objective. Holding Ground also emphasized multidisciplinary collaboration, positioning the landscape architect as a coordinator capable of synthesizing ecological, hydrological, economic, and conservation expertise into integrated coastal strategies.

Where Mangroves Retreat and Return by Yang Yuanyuan (MLA 2) negotiated sea-level rise along Benoa Bay’s northern mangrove edge by coupling community adaptation with ecological restoration. Responding to erosion, reclamation, and tourism pressure, the project rebuilt coastal resilience through mangrove recovery, positioning the shoreline as a dynamic interface between livelihoods, urban development, and shifting tidal ecologies.

POLITICS OF CONSERVATION: NAVIGATING SOCIO-ECOLOGICAL TERRITORIES OF CHIANG MAI LA5701 MLA Studio: Country Option Studio II

Tutor:

Xiaoxuan Lu

Spalding Landscapes by Shruthakeerthi Karthikeyan (MLA 2) reimagined the Doi Pui Nature Trail as a living laboratory shaped by ecological hybridity, local histories, and evolving conservation practices. Challenging rigid distinctions between native and non-native species, the project proposed the gradual removal of existing infrastructure to foreground ecological succession, material memory, and collaborative forms of environmental conservation.

Landscape of Self-Healing by Qi Kexin (MLA 2) preserved Chiang Mai’s rice and longan landscapes through agro-ecological strategies that countered accelerating farmland loss. By diversifying habitats, strengthening farmer resilience, and enabling urban-rural knowledge exchange, the project positioned cultivation as a self-renewing landscape system where productivity, biodiversity, and local stewardship reinforced one another.

Framed through the contested landscapes of Chiang Mai, the Politics of Conservation studio examined cultural and environmental conservation as both a regional challenge and a field for landscape intervention. The studio positioned Chiang Mai as an important case within broader Southeast Asian debates on conservation while also treating it as an experimental territory for developing strategies that strengthen socio-ecological resilience and equity. Students engaged with critical literature from anthropology and geography to understand how conservation is shaped by competing values, institutions, communities, and spatial claims. This theoretical foundation was complemented by engagement with stakeholders actively involved in ongoing conservation debates, including governmental agencies, research groups, and local design organizations. Through these exchanges, students developed a more nuanced understanding of how ecological protection, cultural heritage, governance, and community interests intersect. The studio encouraged landscape architecture to operate critically within these negotiations, formulating site-responsive strategies for more equitable and resilient socio-ecological futures.

Materialities of Resistance by Du Xinyang (MLA 2) resisted the gradual erosion of Chiang Mai’s outer city wall through community-led stewardship, informal land use, and locally grounded conservation practices. The project reframed heritage as an ongoing negotiation between material decay and social vitality, sustaining the earthen monument through cultural participation, ecological resilience, and collective care.

LIVING CURRENTS: RECLAIMING RIVER LANDSCAPES THROUGH REGENERATIVE TOURISM AND COMMUNITY MEMORY IN KUCHING, SARAWAK LA5701 MLA Studio: Country Option Studio III

Tutor:

Casey Nai-Huei Wang

Kuching Community Craft & Foodscape by Deng Pinyi (MLA 2) fostered edible landscapes and craft-based forest systems across Kuching’s kampungs, reconnecting communities through food, making, and shared ecological knowledge. By transforming bare land and native forest edges into productive social landscapes, the project restored endangered dietary traditions and local crafts within a resilient, sensory community network.

Human-Crocodile Conflict Mitigation by Cao Yutong (MLA 2) buffered Sarawak’s riverfront communities from escalating human-crocodile conflict through spatial strategies that secured everyday access while preserving ecological continuity. The project separated high-risk encounters without isolating the river, accommodating recreation, livelihoods, and conservation within a safer landscape framework shaped by coexistence rather than exclusion.

Situated along the Sarawak River in Kuching, the Living Currents studio investigated the intersections of ecological restoration, cultural memory, and regenerative tourism. The studio explored how river landscapes could support environmental resilience while sustaining local livelihoods and reinforcing place-based cultural identity. Particular attention was given to youth engagement, indigenous knowledge, and emerging tourism economies as important forces in shaping future relationships between communities and the river. Students developed spatial strategies that repositioned the Sarawak River as a civic, cultural, and ecological spine rather than solely a physical waterway. Design proposals considered biodiversity, mobility, heritage, intergenerational storytelling, and locally rooted commercial activities as interconnected components of river regeneration. Through this approach, Living Currents encouraged students to examine how landscape architecture can mediate between ecological recovery and socioeconomic development while creating regenerative tourism models grounded in community memory, local participation, and the distinctive cultural landscapes of Kuching.

Living Heritage by Chen Yingzhao (MLA 2) anchored a distributed and evolving landscape system in the heritage of the Sarawak River, local materials, and community craft. By treating the river as a cultural interface, the project connected making, memory, and everyday occupation, allowing heritage to remain active, adaptive, and collectively sustained across the waterfront.

Design

Thesis

ARCHIVE IN MOTION - NEGOTIATING LANDSCAPE, INFRASTRUCTURE, AND GOVERNANCE IN SKEIÐARÁRSANDUR

Archive in Motion reimagines conservation in Iceland’s Vatnajökull region by proposing a “living archive” that documents landscapes through participation rather than preservation alone. Focusing on Skeiðarársandur, a dynamic glacial outwash plain shaped by retreating ice, volcanic activity, and catastrophic floods, the project argues that conventional conservation—based on fixed boundaries and restricted access—is ill-suited to landscapes defined by continual transformation. Instead, it reframes conservation as an active practice of care, where ecological change and human engagement become inseparable. The project reorients Iceland’s Ring Road from a transport corridor into a spine of engagement, linking a distributed network of four archive stations across the landscape. Each station invites a different mode of interaction—cultivating moss and turf, redistributing glacial sediments, witnessing post-flood ecological recovery, and observing glacial

By: Xinyang Du Tutor: Victoria Jane Marshall

AT THE EDGE OF FIRE: EUCALYPTUS-BASED STRATEGIES FOR COEXISTING WITH FIRE

By: Jinguo Huang Tutor: Russell Arthur Smith

retreat—allowing visitors to experience geological and ecological processes through direct participation rather than passive observation. Local materials, including basalt, moss, and sediment, form the basis of each intervention, ensuring that the archive remains embedded within the landscape it documents. Rather than producing a static record of a disappearing environment, the archive continuously evolves alongside the landscape itself. Through fieldwork, custom research instruments, cartographic documentation, and site-specific interventions, the project demonstrates how landscape architecture can transform documentation into an act of stewardship. By positioning visitors, researchers, and local communities as active participants, Archive in Motion proposes a transferable model for conserving fragile, climate-sensitive landscapes through engagement, observation, and shared responsibility rather than exclusion.

Wildfire is now a defining condition of south-eastern Australia. In the Blue Mountains, climate change and suppression-led management have intensified the conflict between fire-dependent Eucalyptus forests and human settlements. This design research thesis explores how landscape architecture can respond through adaptation rather than control. Based on fieldwork in the Blue Mountains and Victoria, the design research thesis uses Katoomba to reframe the wildland–urban interface as a

gradient from domestic gardens to wilderness. Drawing on the dual nature of Eucalyptus — its capacity to intensify fire and recover from it — the design proposes four zones: defensive garden, productive buffer, water-holding corridor, and minimal-intervention wilderness. Together, these zones form an everyday public landscape and a working fire system, offering transferable principles for fire-adaptive landscapes within NSW frameworks.

BEYOND THE GARDEN ENCLAVE: REDISTRIBUTING ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE THROUGH EVERYDAY LANDSCAPES OF CARE

This design research thesis reexamines the role of Singapore Botanic Gardens as a historical node where plant knowledge was produced, transformed, and projected onto the city. Rather than treating the garden as an isolated heritage site, it reveals how its logics of classification, control, and efficiency continue to shape everyday landscapes and how people are allowed to interact with them. Through four narratives, the design research thesis traces how these logics persist and proposes spatial strategies that allow people to directly engage with and reinterpret their environment. Lalang is reframed from a “weed” into a plant that residents can harvest, use, and learn from through everyday practices. At forest edges, moss-based

By: Kejie Li Tutor: Maxime Decaudin

installations make subtle environmental changes visible, allowing visitors to observe and understand forest health. Along the Rail Corridor, ground markings and AR overlays reveal how rubber once moved through global trade networks, connecting local landscapes to distant systems. In HDB areas, small platforms, accessible planting zones, and fruit tree lists enable residents to sit under, touch, and cultivate trees, turning greenery from a managed background into something they can use and take care of. Together, these interventions form a distributed landscape of care, where environmental knowledge is no longer delivered by a single institution, but practiced through everyday life.

GARDENS OF NEGLECT: RUDERAL REORGANISATION OF ECOLOGY, TIME AND INFORMALITY IN URBAN RUINS

This design research thesis examines abandonment as a generative condition of urbanisation in South and Southeast Asia, shaped by legal ambiguity and social dynamics. Rather than failure, abandoned sites become spaces where ecological succession and informal use emerge, reversing the typical logic of human-centred design. The formal systems have suspended land

By: Shruthakeerthi Karthikeyan Tutor: Yifeng Lin

between claims, accidentally releasing it from human control. This design research thesis reframes urban ruins as spontaneous “gardens” that produce new social and ecological possibilities. Examined here through Hyderabad as a pilot site, it explores how these ruin-gardens act as a portal, revealing what the landscape asks to become through neglect, disturbance, and ambiguity.

REVEALING THE POTENTIAL FOR GREEN: RETROFIT STRATEGIES FOR HIGH-DENSITY URBAN STREETSCAPES IN HO CHI MINH CITY

Ho Chi Minh City faces an acute public green space deficit, exacerbated by rapid urbanization and a hyperdense urban fabric that renders conventional park construction economically and spatially unviable. This design research thesis reconceptualizes the city’s street network—comprising approximately 30% of its land area—as the primary ecological infrastructure capable of addressing this crisis. To address this, the research develops an integrated “evaluation–diagnosis–intervention” framework. It combines macro-scale GIS analysis with micro-scale street-view image semantic segmentation, introducing the Green View Index (GVI) to rigorously quantify Grey Voids—underutilized spaces such as blank walls, wide pavements, and under-bridge areas. By applying K-Means

By: Qianwen Wang Tutor: Jinda Qi

clustering across three distinct urban morphologies (colonial grids, vernacular Hẻm alleyways, and modern superblocks), the study maps street performance and identifies five critical spatial constraints, ranging from wide Exposed Deserts to enclosed Deep Canyons. The research culminates in a toolkit that translates these diagnostic findings into actionable design. Guided by a “minimum footprint, maximum impact” philosophy, the toolkit matches targeted, zero-digging strategies—such as parasitic bio-scaffolds, tactical under-bridge acupuncture, and vertical greening—to specific spatial constraints. Ultimately, this design research thesis bridges data-driven urban assessment with tactical design interventions, offering a scalable methodology for retrofitting high-density tropical streets into continuous, equitable ecological infrastructure.

FROM PREFERENCES TO PLACES: A COMPUTABLE, EVIDENCE-LED WORKFLOW FOR REDESIGNING URBAN PARKS

Traditional urban park redesign frequently relies on expert authority or one-off public consultations that yield fragmented “wish lists” of isolated objects, creating a persistent translation gap between public sentiment and drawable geometric layouts. To address this limitation, this design research thesis proposes an end-to-end, computable, and evidence-led workflow that treats public preferences as structured geometric data rather than static demands.The methodology was deployed using Hong Lim Park in central Singapore—specifically its ideologically charged Speaker’s Corner—as a civic laboratory. A custom browser-based web application was developed to

By: Guangyuan Wen Tutor: Dorothy Tang

capture public input. Unlike conventional design tools that record static diagrams or simple markers, The application tracks real-time user interactions as structured JSON records containing precise coordinates, footprint areas, rotations, and estimated costs. A pilot study gathered 50 valid individual design sessions, which were then passed through an automated Python auditing routine and a Grasshopper-based computational engine. By subdividing the site into a uniform grid and applying a probability gridding algorithm, the engine aggregated individual variations into a single, statistically well-founded consensus heatmap without collapsing meaningful local differences.

FROM BITTER ROOTS TO LIVING ROUTES: REFRAMING COPTIS AS A LIVING CORRIDOR OF CULTURE AND PRODUCTION

This design research thesis investigates the uneven distribution of Coptis chinensis (Huanglian) supply chain, whose extract - Berberine - has recently gained prominence as a high -value dietary supplement within global wellness markets. With its climatic and topographic conditions, Shizhu, Chongqing, accounts for 60% of the world’s supply; despite this, local farmers remain largely confied to a marginal position within the value chain. The crop’s long growth cycle, necessary fallow periods, and vulnerability to disease further intensify rural livelihood instability among farming households. This design research thesis proposes a strategy that integrates agroforestry and rural tourism as an operative framework for production optimization and territorial regeneration. Agroforestry is deployed not simply as an agricultural technique, but as a spatial and ecological system

By: Qingyi Wu Tutor: Janice Tung

that restores soil health, diversifies productive outputs, and mediates ecological and economic vulnerabilities. In parallel, a linear tourism corridor is conceived as a connective infrastructure, linking villages, plantations, and local market - transforming dispersed sites of production into a legible territorial network. Through this, visitors are invited to participate in the processes of cultivation, processing, and regional food culture as a collective public experience. The Huanglian market is reimagined as a multifunctional civic and economic hub; supporting exchange, community participation and cultural visibility. By interweaving productive landscapes, local practices, and spatial infrastructure, this design research thesis positions design as a means of redistributing value, by re-tooling the relationship between agriculture, local identity and regional economic flows into a productive and cultural landscape.

PRODUCING THE GIR LIONSCAPE: REDESIGNING BOUNDARIES, SETTLEMENT EDGES, AND TOURIST ENCOUNTERS WITHIN A MANUFACTURED WILDNESS

This design research thesis examines how the contemporary Asiatic lion landscape in Gir, Gujarat, is shaped by conservation governance, tourism, pastoral practices, compensation, and regional politics. Rather than treating Gir as a naturally given habitat, it understands the lion as an ecological species, tourism commodity, governance object, and political symbol within a complex political-ecological system. As lions expand beyond the legal boundaries of Gir National Park and Gir Wildlife Sanctuary into Greater Gir, their shifting ecological range increasingly conflicts with static conservation boundaries. In response, the design research thesis proposes three

By: Xiaoyang Yang Tutor: Dorothy Tang

interventions: reorganizing Greater Gir through an ecological core, adaptive boundary belt, and distributed nodes to accommodate lion expansion; establishing a fodder production and storage system in Maldhari settlements to reduce livestock movement toward high-risk edges; and introducing hidden observation hides and a Hiran River boat safari to shift tourism toward low-disturbance, habitatoriented observation, while redirecting more certain lion sightings to Devalia Safari Park. Together, these strategies reorganize boundaries, livestock support, and wildlife observation toward a lower-conflict and more adaptive coexistence among lions, livestock, and human settlements.

LOCALITY THROUGH CARE: REACTIVATING TELAJAKAN FOR FRANGIPANI IN DENPASAR

By: Zhou Yao Tutor: Lu Xiaoxuan

Credits & Teaching Team

AY 25/26 STUDENTS BLA 1 Design 1 Bronwyn Tan Faiz Bin Zohri Hwang Yun Hye BLA 1 Design 2 Faiz Bin Zohri Lehana Guo Maxime Decaudin BLA Year 1 Students Ang Pei Shuen Jasmine, Ang Yen Zhi Katherine, Annette Eve Siow, Asher Khor Xin Zhe, Bernice Ong Yixuan, Cara Teo Tze Ning, Chan Chek Ying Janice, Chan Jinan, Cheryl Ang Jing Yi, Faydra Neo Kai Juan, Joshua Tan Yuzhe, Koh Jun Xuan, Lai Ee Zayne, Lim Jing Xi, Lin Xi Elva, Loh Ren Jun Evan, Marie Anne Tan Jie En, Muhammad Johan Azly Bin Noor Azhar, Musuvathi Harshi Saravanan, Ong Jie Ying, Sakabe Noa, Sean Phua Boen, Simran Dubay, Syed Amir Bin Syed Zainal, Tan Shi Ting, Tay Ying Xuan, Teh Rei Qi, Then Jing Ying, Timothy Lee Wei Liang, Varsaah Thevaranjan, Yu Wenxin, Zay Lynnz Htet BLA 2 Design 3 Jasmine Tay Varit Charoenveingvechkit Victor Kuan Yifeng Lin Zihao Wong BLA 2 Design 4 Evi Syariffudin Janice Tung Larry Yeung Man Ki Varit Charoenveingvechkit Wong Ruen Qing

This design research thesis reframes locality not as a matter of origin, but as something produced through engagement and care, explored through the case of frangipani, a non-native species central to daily life in Denpasar. Frangipani functions not only as an ornamental plant but as a daily resource for ritual, a spatial marker, and part of a distributed urban ecology. Its everyday presence has historically depended on a dispersed local system of care embedded in urban fabric and processes, notably the household courtyard (natah) and the streetside planting strip (telajakan). Together, these spaces allowed frangipani to be cultivated, maintained, and kept

accessible within the routines of daily life. Current urban pressures, including the gradual loss of courtyard space to household expansion, and the encroachment of streetside space by parking or privatization, are weakening this system. A growing gap between ritual demand and the amount of frangipani accessible in daily life indicates not simply a shortage of trees, but an erosion of local care capacity. In response, the design research thesis proposes reactivating telajakan to strengthen the care system, restoring the spatial and social conditions through which frangipani can continue to sustain its socio-ecological and spiritual role in Denpasar’s everyday urban life.

BLA Year 2 Students Aeryn Myiesha Binte Wan Shahirin Al-Habshee, Charmaine Chee, Damien Chengjun, Debby Teng Qin Xuan, Feng Jiazhen, Goh Mavis, Hiew Itti, Ho Yee Wai, Jaz Foo Khai Xin, Koh Qi Rui, Lee Jiasyn, Lee Kyuri, Lee Ying Qi, Loke Wen Xin Erica, Low Yue Hui, Lu Valyn, Maegan Callista Husodo, Megan Yeo Ze Qi (Yang Zeqi), Nur Nadhilah Binte Hisham, Nurin Insyirah Mohamed Taufik, Rachel Peh Yu Xuan, Tammy Oh Yiling, Tee Lei, Tham Xin Lei, Yu Chun Wei

BLA 3 Design 5 Jasmine Tay Quentin Sim Ruen Qing Wong BLA 3 Design 6 Agnes Soh Dorothy Tang Lyn Liu Mel Yip BLA Year 3 Students Amanda Kuan Xin Yi, Andrea Lee Si Hui, Beatrice Tabitha Wong Yiren, Cai Zhenning, Chin Zhao Hui, Chong Kar Hee, Clarissa Margaret Djie, Enya Yeo Shih En, Estella Zhang Yiting, Eunice Lee Jingting, Eunice Low Yun Li, Foo Jun Hong Ethan, Huda Umairah Binte Mohd Azhar, Javin Yeo Thiam Lok, Joan Chua Xin Hui, Joey Hoe Si-En, Joshua Liang, Kat Zi Jie, Kimnee Tan Xin Hui, Koh Ki Suan Danielle, Lee Jade, Lee Rui En Elvina, Lee Yan Lin, Lim Jiin, Lim Quan Hai, Lim Rui Qi, Lin Weiran, Liu Luke Mu, Muhammad Hariz Bin Nasaruddin Shah, Natasha Aaliyah Binte Mohamad Shafiee, Ng Zi Qing Gwyneth, Nurhaziqah Binte Muhammad Rashid, Nurin Irdina Binte Azhari, Oliva Tera Gondokaryono, Tang Shi Min, Umiko Ng Xi Wen, Uresh Kumar S/O Savoger Rajah, Wai Yan Tint Lwin, Wang Xuechun, Xavier Ling Xuan, Xing Qingying, Yeo Mei Zhen, Yeo Xuan Wen, Zhang Litian, Zhong Kailin Catherine BLA 4 Design 7 Gu Tiantong Janice Tung Lehana Guo Victoria Jane Marshall Wai Hon Tham BLA 4 Design 8 Ervine Lin Hwang Yun Hye Joshua Adam Comaroff Victoria Jane Marshall Yifeng Lin BLA Year 4 Students Aceline Athene Wong, Alina Lee Ting Yu, Bian Chuqi, Chan Ming Hao, Chew Qi Zhi Justin, Chong Jia Xin Trenyce, Chong Le Er, Darren Lee Wei Jun, Dian Firzanah Binte Mohammad Azlan, Emma Ng Zhuo En, Ester Lim Yng Ying, Felicia Poh Shi Han, Goh Yi Wei, Heng Jun Kai, Hsu Sandy Oo, Iffah Amirah Binte Ahmad Ithnin, Iffah Munirah Binte Marwan, Jana Oh Yee Tian, Janelle Goh Shih Ying, Kwa Wei Nian Tivon, Layla

Grace O’connor, Lee Jia Yu Emer, Lee Xin Yi Jade, Lim Junyoung, Lin Yang, Liw Huixuan, Muskan Anshuman Rao, Natalie Sim Kay Yee, Natasha Aneesa Marican Binte Mansor, Ng Xin Yi Hannah, Nur Aqilah Binte Shariffudin, Nur Hanisah Binte Mohamad Ibrahim, Nur Leila Binte Laqman Hakem, Nur Sabrina Binte Hamdan, Nurin Qistina Binte Fathul Rahim, Nurul Syarah Binte Zulkifli, Orange Lim Sim Yi, Paul Yee Ze En, Pon En Yao, Sia Qian Ying, Siew Hoi Mun, Sumaiya Azad, Tan Yan Tong Niki, Tan Yew Hean, Tee Wan Ching, Thou Jia Le, Thun Kai Feng, Toh Tze Hwee Chloe, Toh Wen Ting, Tsu Hui Lin Cheryl, Wang Lu, Xu Xin, Ying Kai Ng, Zenn Lim MLA Year 1 Students Arunachalam Kothai, Bao Yihan, Bhagwat Ruchira, Boddapati Krishna Sri, Cai Jiaheng, Chen Qingsong, Ding Hao, Gao Xinyu, Guo Churui, Li Jingyao, Li Yuanhao, Lin Keyu, Liu Yunqi, Su Juhui, Tian Zhican, Wang Muqing, Wu Han, Wu Qiqi, Wu Yilin, Yan Linhao, Yu Yun, Yue Jingqiu, Zhao Fuhan, Zhong Chenyang, Zhou Qianya MLA 2 Design 9 Casey Nai-Huei Wang Evi Syariffudin Xiaoxuan Lu Thesis and Dissertation Advisors Dorothy Tang Ervine Lin Janice Tung Maxime Decaudin Qi Jinda Russel Arthur Smith Victoria Jane Marshall Xiaoxuan Lu Yifeng Lin Thesis Coordinator: Dorothy Tang MLA Year 2 Students Cao Yutong, Chen Jiaying, Chen Yingzhao, Chen Zeya, Chen Zhuoran, Deng Pinyi, Du Xinyang, Huang Jinguo, Karthikeyan Shruthakeerthi, Li Kejie, Li Mu, Li Xiyuan, Li Yixuan, Luo Siqi, Mai Siyao, Pan Yuwen, Qi Kexin, Shu Yao, Sun Jiakang, Vadlakunta Akshitha, Wang Qianwen, Wang Wenhao, Wayne Tan Pei Wee, Wen Guangyuan, Wu Qingyi, Xu Yingrui, Yang Xiaoyang, Yang Yuanyuan, Yi Wang, Zhang Xinyao, Zhou Qinying, Zhou Siyuan, Zhou Yao

TEACHING TEAM Full Time Faculty Dorothy Tang, Assistant Professor Gareth Gerard Doherty, Associate Professor Hwang Yun Hye, Associate Professor Janice Tung Yan, Assistant Professor Lin Shengwei Ervine, Senior Lecturer Lin Yifeng (Tiger), Associate Professor Lu Xiaoxuan, Visiting Associate Professor, BLA Programme Director Maxime Cedric Decaudin, Senior Lecturer Qi Jinda, Assistant Professor Tan Puay Yok, Professor Victoria Jane Marshall, Senior Lecturer, MLA Programme Director Part-Time Studio Tutors & Instructors Alfred Lee Casey Wang Nai-Huei Evi Syariffudin Guo Lehana Helen Fan Lei Helen Smith-Yeo Isabella Ong Jasmine Tay Koh Jiann Bin Lai Chee Kien Larry Yeung Man Ki Melissa Yip N. Sivasothi Ronnie Tan Rosita Samsudin Tan Yit Chuan Tham Wai Hon Varit Charoenveingvechkit Victor Kuan Wong Ruen Qing

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