Landscape Architecture Design Studios

Both Landscape Architecture MA and Landscape Architecture MLA are taught partly through Design Studios. Seven Studios are currently running in the 2023-24 academic year. Please find briefs for each Studio below.

Studio 1

Eric Guibert and Emma Colthurst 

Studio 1 investigate regenerative ways of creating landscapes that value what is already present and co-create with these living beings and systems. Philosophically, this Studio recognise that humans are not at the centre, but rather share the world with all beings equally. According to Isabelle Stengers, "Taking a 'modern animist' position, we will work with the agency of other-than-humans". Understanding the mutual interdependence requires new systems of thinking-with and making-with. Studio 1 will follow three key lines of enquiry: 

1. Speculate on the possible ecological politics embodied in the proposed landscape practices, aiming for climate and biodiversity justice that balance the needs of all living beings and communities, human or otherwise. 

2. Interrogate which economies and modes of ownership can sustain biodiverse and resilient landscapes. 

3. Focus closely on the modes of care and other making practices that embody this position. 

Their speculations will aim to answer four questions: 

• How can landscapes be co-created with other-than-human species and systems? 
• How can equal voice be given to various human and other-than-human communities? 
• What does it mean to hold open space in the world for other-than-human beings, and what relations are at stake? 
• What kind of aesthetic frames arise from such co-creative explorations? 

Image: Mahtab Hajikarimian, painted sketch plan using the emergent quality of wet-on-wet watercolour, DS1 2023 

Studio 2 

Cannon Ivers and Alexandru Malaescu 

The evolutionary biologist E.O. Wilson, in an effort to combat the 6th extinction and the rapid loss of biodiversity, devised a strategy to safeguard half of Earth as wildlands. According to Wilson, “The Half-Earth project is a call to protect half the land and sea in order to manage sufficient habitat to reverse the species extinction crisis and ensure the long-term health of our planet.” (1) 

The question then arises, what role can cities play in this effort and what positive impacts would they have on urban streets and spaces if the urban biosphere was seen as a critical aspect of a functioning city? What would a half living-city or half-living site look like and how it would perform? 

Currently 55% of the world’s population lives in urban areas and this figure could hit 70% by 2050. As urban population increases, the design of streets, squares, parks and gardens becomes paramount to the quality of life for humans and the more-than-humans with whom we share the biosphere.  As Richard Weller states: “If we are to have any hope of broaching the sixth extinction, then design must interconnect the scenic, the systemic, and the social.” 

Image: Han-Tse Lee, The Room Under, DS2 2023.

Studio 3

Unruly Operations, Transboundary Landscapes 

Alberto Campagnoli and Richard Beckett 

This year studio 3 will continue their investigation into contemporary human - nature relationships and their affordances for the landscape, exploring the ecological dimension of life in connection with and its impact on nature. Specifically, they will explore the extent of these agencies through the concept of borders.

Working at multiple scales, the studio will focus on transfrontier sites, both in London and in Karelia, Finland, exploring how adjacent places with similar natural and cultural substrates can evolve into markedly different landscapes as a result of borders. Borders in this sense might be physical, political or ideological, they may be fixed or constantly changing, they might include current realities or explore speculative futures. The research from Studio 3 will explore the differences and similarities that are shaped by divergent cultural, socio-political, economic positions and their resulting landscape strategies. 

Image: Valentina Caro Beveridge, Rewilding Coastal Landscapes - Saltmarsh Habitats as a Flood Mitigation Probiotic Agent, DS3 2023.

Studio 4

Katya Larina and Doug Miller  

“Eating is an inherently political act, as well as an ecological and ethical one; there is no such thing as amoral food, any more than there is a free lunch.” - Sitopia, Caroline Steel, The Journal of Landscape Institute, 2021 Issue 1.

This year Studio 4 will set out to explore Sitopias, the 12000 year old experiment of feeding the earth, and question how landscapes can adapt to survive.  

The issue of food and the landscapes that fuel humanity encompass a wide array of factors. A huge variety of ecologies, politics, economics, culture, values, and identities are wrapped up in these landscapes of consumption, but the concept of Sitopia can be seen from just two simple sides. Firstly, that the landscapes we use to feed ourselves have imperilled our long-term survival on earth, and secondly the potential for sustainable and inventive solutions to foodscapes is an exciting and essential task to undertake.  

Foodscapes of huge cultural and ecological value exist. The breathtaking grazing fields of the Lake District, the vineyard-covered slopes of northern Italy, or the centuries-old fishing villages found along the Mediterranean coast. These landscapes and their operation show how studying the landscape of food can reveal the unknown and the beautiful and perhaps suggest starting points for how to negotiate our way through a complex future. 

Image: Biying Wang, Farming Futures of the Lake District, DS4 2023

Studio 5

Laurence Blackwell Thale and Pete Davies 

This year Studio 5 are exploring the diverse ecologies, challenging futures and exciting potential of island landscapes within the British Isles. Islands are test beds, proving ground and sites for experimentation. They are places that people imagine, dream about, and are fascinated by. For landscape architects, they are unusual territory, as they allow us to understand them in totality. The miniature scale suggests a level of control not possible on the mainland where invisible borders segregate and delineate. From the Scilly Isles to the wider UK archipelago and into Europe, island residents are calling for change. For too long they have experienced gross underfunding, monopolised infrastructure and unsustainably sized development models.

Studio 5 will be tackling these issues head-on, identifying moments where strategic landscape intervention can foster community resilience, suggest potential future systems and respond to complex socio-geographical issues through sensitive and context driven design. 

Image: Yuelin Liu, 'Winspit's Nomadic Nursery', DS5 2023.

Studio 7

Günther Galligioni and Christina Leigh Geros

Recently, Sadiq Kahn, the mayor of London, attended a climate summit in New York where governments have gathered to discuss how best to deal with rising, searing temperatures. Kahn expressed serious concerns about London’s prospects of regularly enduring multiple days of 45C temperatures in the 'foreseeable future', with the ultimate takeaway that change must take place now. Several cities around the world shared similar growing concerns and have appointed Chief Heat Officers (all female) to rethink how cities deal with levels of heat previously unimagined. One measure adopted has been the increase of shade trees in public spaces, but is this all that can be done with the city’s greenspaces? 

Outside of the urban context, increasing temperatures lead to lengthy periods of hot, dry weather that allow for the accumulation of fire-fuel and the conditions for rapid fire-spread across grasslands and forests. Wildfires are not a new phenomenon - albeit an increasingly catastrophic and endemic condition - to landscapes across southern Europe, but they are an emergent risk in the UK that we are hardly ready for. How can landscape architecture contribute to new ecologies, management and co-management strategies, and aesthetic values that can prepare and reshape the British landscape without erasing its deep traditions and histories? 

Image: Yanli Ma, The Vanishing Farm, DS7 2023.

Studio 8

Tom Budd, Hannah Corlett and Lyn Poon 

It is taken for granted that time moves forward in a linear fashion, minutes tick by as populations rise and cities develop and grow at an ever-increasing rate. This fast linear time seems to bring about a disconnect and detachment between people, communities and the natural environment within which they inhabit. Shifting the view to the more isolated, rural and remote communities across the world reveals a different connection between people and place. With increased isolation, a stronger bond emerges between inhabitants and their surrounding environment and landscape. This connection forms a more cyclical relationship with time, rooted in tradition, rituals and seasonality that has enabled communities to withstand and thrive within harsh environmental conditions for decades. 

Through this lens, Studio 8 will be investigating what can be learnt from remoteness and isolation. In places with a strong connection to their natural landscapes, what benefits can a sense of slow, circular time provide, and how can a reconnection with this cyclical way of thinking provide new insights for our future?

Image: Ana Patricia Garrido Chávez, Landscape Choreographies, DS8 2023.