Peri-urban areas in Rabat are undergoing rapid transformation driven by urban expansion, infrastructural development, and increasing pressure on ecological systems. These transitional landscapes are characterized by fragmented land uses, unclear boundaries, and weak integration of natural processes into spatial planning. The Bouregreg Valley functions as a complex urban–ecological interface where multiple edge conditions coexist.

This project adopts a landscape-based urbanism approach to analyze and reinterpret the peri-urban landscape of Rabat. At the regional scale, the research develops a classification of peri-urban typologies based on edge conditions, land-use patterns, and spatial morphology, establishing a structural understanding of the city’s transitional territories. The Bouregreg Valley is examined as a key spatial and ecological system influencing topography, hydrology, and landscape connectivity across the metropolitan region.

Based on this regional analysis, the project zooms in on the selected Chellah wetland area in the Bouregreg Valley to explore how landscape-based principles can be translated into spatial design. The design approaches the peri-urban landscape as a dynamic urban ecological interface and proposes a landscape strategy that supports natural processes, improves spatial quality, and creates multifunctional open spaces. Through site-specific interventions, the project demonstrates how peri-urban landscapes can operate as active mediators between urban development and ecological systems rather than residual or undefined land.
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Peat-polder landscapes are shaped by a long history of human control. Through reclamation and drainage the wet peat landscapes were transformed
into productive and habitable polders. However, this system is becoming increasingly vulnerable. Soil subsidence, water shortage and urban pressure show that the current relation between natural systems and spatial development is no longer sustainable.

This thesis explores how a landscape-based design approach can guide future development in the peat-polder landscapes along the Hollandsche IJssel. The research focuses on the metropolitan peat-polder landscape of the Zuidplaspolder and the Krimpenerwaard. Although these landscapes are different in origin, structure and use, they are connected through the natural layers of the landscape. The thesis therefore approaches the region as a layered landscape in which the abiotic system, human interventions and spatial experience continuously influence each other.

Through layered analysis, the main challenge is defined as a misalignment between landscape systems. Soil and water systems and land use often follow different logics. To guide future transformation, this thesis uses landscape authenticity as a spatial framework. Authenticity is understood as the alignment between natural systems, historical continuity and spatial legibility. This makes it possible to design change without losing the identity of the landscape.

The research results in three landscape conditions: the Deep Polder, the Urban Edge and the Peat Plains. Each condition has its own form of authenticity, challenges and design potential. The regional vision translates these conditions into a future landscape framework based on water, production, living and ecology. Local designs further explore how this framework can be applied through climate-resilient interventions.

The thesis concludes that climate resilience and landscape authenticity are interconnected goals. When spatial development starts from soil, water and landscape structure, adaptation can strengthen the identity of the landscape. The future of the Hollandsche IJssel region therefore lies in working with its underlying logic.
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This research explores how landscape-based design can serve as a framework for the rapidly urbanizing region of Nusantara, East Kalimantan. Located within an ecologically and culturally diverse and sensitive region, Balikpapan Bay faces increasing environmental pressures caused by deforestation, monoculture eucalyptus and oil palm plantations, mining concessions, infrastructure expansion, and urbanization. These developments disrupt hydrological systems, fragment habitats, intensify flooding, erosion, and drought, increase water pollution, accelerate biodiversity loss, and risk displacing local livelihoods. The construction of the new capital city, Nusantara, risks intensifying these challenges. This emplifies the need for a landscape-based approach to urban development that integrates flood safety, ecological regeneration, climate resilience, and social equity.

The study begins with a broad analysis of the landscape structures and systems. A set of landscape-based design principles and strategies is generated from fieldwork and precedent studies. From this, a regional strategy for the Balikpapan Bay region is developed. Local design explorations at strategic locations illustrate the strategies’ applications at a more detailed scale. The research is entirely grounded in theories of Landscape-Based Urbanism, climate resilience, watershed approach, and Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK).

The research and design outcome illustrate that a robust blue-green network of water and ecological gradients can serve as a strong backbone for future urban development. Regenerating and preserving the upstream forests, lowland rainforests, river corridors, and mangrove forests improves infiltration, groundwater recharge, flood mitigation, biodiversity, and climate resilience, while strengthening ecological connectivity throughout the region. Furthermore, Indigenous and Traditional Ecological Knowledge provides valuable place-based insights into adaptive water management, settlement structures, and climate-responsive living and sustainable income-generating alternatives.

The thesis concludes that landscape-based design offers an adaptive and multifunctional framework for shaping Nusantara’s urbanizing landscape as a water-sensitive, ecologically regenerative, and socially inclusive urban landscape in which water functions not only as a resource but also as a guiding spatial structure for future development. ... Read more

How can cultural landscapes be conserved and developed through the landscape approach? This thesis argues that cultural landscapes can be conserved and developed through an integrated landscape approach that treats them as living systems. Heritage value emerges not only from monuments or scenic elements, but from the interaction of physical structures, ecological processes, historical layers, and social experience. In response to climate change and urban transformation, conservation must move beyond static object protection toward system evolution, long-term resilience and adaptive capacity. The proposed landscape approach connects three components: landscape mapping, landscape planning, and landscape design. Landscape mapping characterizes long-term evolution, persistent spatial structures, and scene-level attributes through literature synthesis, digital reconstruction, clustering, and land-use analysis, using Chengde Mountain Resort as the case. Landscape planning integrates hazards, ecological sensitivity, expert knowledge, public perception, spatial relationships, and visitor movement. The Hazard–Ecology–Perception Landscape Planning (HEPLP) framework supports targeted zoning and governance, while the Perceptual–Spatial Landscape Planning Model (PSLPM) uses large language models, graph neural networks, and route optimization to reduce visitor pressure, improve perceptual coherence, and expand access to meaningful but overlooked scenes. Landscape design translates diagnosis and planning into operational actions. Design-based and cluster-specific toolkits support reversible construction, compatible material selection, stronger ecological connections, improved water retention, and more effective visitor allocation. The overall contribution is a coherent framework that connects historical understanding and resilience with implementable strategies for conservation and development. ... Read more

This thesis examines the practical integration of urban wilderness into spatial planning and design, aiming to establish actionable knowledge through a pattern language that supports ecologically driven and perceptually engaging urban environments. The thesis systematically explores four interconnected aspects: clarifying the conceptual foundations of urban wilderness in the urban planning and design discipline; investigating its spatial features and user perceptions; synthesizing design knowledge into structured wilderness design patterns; and validating their applicability through expert interviews and collaborative design experiments.... ... Read more

Heritage landscapes are experienced, interpreted, and governed through what people see. Visual qualities such as skyline continuity, landmark prominence, enclosure, openness, and view accessibility influence how heritage value is perceived and how spatial interventions are accepted. Meanwhile, urbanization, tourism development, and infrastructure expansion increasingly reshape visual environments, making visual governance a central concern in heritage conservation and landscape planning. Although visual heritage landscape research has grown rapidly, it often remains fragmented: studies tend to privilege either spatial-technical modelling or perception-based evaluation, and the connections between data, methods, and research aims are frequently implicit. This fragmentation limits cross-case comparability, weakens methodological accumulation, and reduces the usability of research outputs for practice. Therefore, the main objective of this thesis is to establish a pathway-oriented framework that links data-method-content configurations, enabling visual evidence to be translated into structured knowledge and practical guidance for spatial decision-making.
A pathway-oriented framework for visual heritage landscape research
This thesis conceptualizes visual heritage landscape research as a set of pathways that integrate three core components: the data used to describe visual environments, the methods used to analyze them, and the content outcomes expected for interpretation and decision support. Instead of treating methods as isolated techniques, the framework emphasizes how different components can be assembled in coherent sequences to match research purposes, spatial scales, and heritage contexts. Based on this logic, four expanded pathway types (EP-1 to EP-4) are proposed to bridge commonly separated approaches and to support more systematic, integrative study designs. Each pathway highlights a distinct integration focus, but collectively they provide a transferable structure for organizing visual research questions, selecting appropriate evidence, and producing outputs that are both analytically rigorous and implementation-oriented.
Pathway implementation through four case studies
The framework is implemented through four case studies that test the expanded pathways across diverse heritage landscape contexts and multi-scale conditions. EP-1 demonstrates an integrated spatial-perceptual pathway that connects spatial structure with perceptual evidence, enabling the interpretation of visual mechanisms and the validation of experienced visual qualities. EP-2 develops a digitally supported perception evaluation pathway that extends visual assessment to larger spatial coverage and multiple viewpoints through digital capture and modelling, providing scalable insight into visual quality and environmental preference. EP-3 proposes a multi-source visual-spatial pathway that integrates heterogeneous geo-data and multi-view analyses to strengthen interpretation across viewpoints and spatial levels, supporting a richer understanding of how visual patterns emerge from landscape structure. EP-4 advances a perception-informed decision pathway that couples perceptual evidence with visibility modelling to generate threshold-style rules and decision-ready outputs for visual impact assessment, planning control, and governance. Across cases, the thesis produces reusable indicators, spatial typologies, and pattern-based knowledge that can inform conservation strategies, design interventions, and management priorities.
Synthesis, navigation, and contributions
Building on cross-case synthesis, the thesis develops a navigational model that supports pathway selection and configuration according to objectives, constraints, data availability, and implementation needs. This model encourages modular entry points, allowing studies to begin from data constraints, methodological strengths, or governance questions, while still remaining comparable within a shared pathway system. Overall, the thesis contributes by structuring a fragmented field into a coherent framework of pathways, offering modular workflows that connect data acquisition-computation-assessment, and translating visual heritage landscape research into evidence-informed, interpretable, and actionable tools. These contributions aim to strengthen the integration of visual evidence into heritage landscape conservation, planning, and design, and to support more transparent and robust decision-making in visually sensitive heritage contexts. ... Read more

This thesis investigates how urban development in Nusantara, Indonesia’s planned new capital on the island of Borneo, can be used as a regenerative tool to restore ecological patterns and gradients within one of the world’s most biodiverse yet vulnerable rainforest ecosystems. Situated in East Kalimantan, Nusantara faces significant ecological threats from rapid urbanization, deforestation, monoculture agriculture, and mining. The project explores an alternative development model that integrates urban growth with landscape systems to enhance ecological resilience and biodiversity.
Which is to motivation behind this main research question:
"How can we design for a landscape ecological framework that utilizes urban development as a tool to regenerate natural gradients and patterns for the new urban landscape of Nusantara, Indonesia?"
To answer this, the thesis employs a Research through Design methodology, underpinned by Landscape-Based Urbanism, Resilience Theory, Casco Theory, and Landscape Ecology Principles. A multi-scalar design framework is developed by first understanding the landscape morphology, forest typologies, and anthropogenic influences in the region. Key spatial elements, such as ecological corridors, soft urban edges, and riverine buffers, are identified and designed to support species movement, ecological succession, and human-nature interaction.
Three key species, the Sunda Clouded Leopard, Greater Mouse Deer, and Bornean Orangutan, are analysed to define spatial and ecological requirements, guiding the design of a robust ecological network. Comparative studies of global urban densities and their integration of green space inform best practices for combining high-density housing with ecological continuity.
The result is a regional vision and spatial strategy where large ecological corridors, transitional zones, and river buffers interlace urban development with ecological infrastructure. The thesis concludes that a layered, landscape-first approach can reconcile urban needs with ecological integrity, offering a replicable framework for sustainable capital development in ecologically sensitive areas.
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This thesis investigates the regeneration of the riparian corridor of Birrarung (the Yarra River) as a dynamic landscape system that supports ecological connections, water retention, and meaningful human engagement. Post-colonisation urban development, agricultural land-use, water extraction and climate change have fragmented the corridor, disrupted seasonal flows, and reduced the frequency of floodplain inundation. At the same time, steep and privatised river banks limit physical and visual access to the river, causing a disconnect from the river in urban life and underutilisation as a public space. Existing literature highlights the benefits of ecologically connected riparian corridors with space for natural river dynamics, both for the health of river ecosystems and for fostering social connection and human wellbeing.
Using a landscape-based design approach and the Research Through Design method, this project proposes an integrated spatial framework for riparian regeneration. As a form of landscape infrastructure, the river links diverse spaces along its course, allowing local interventions to generate effects at a broader, system-wide scale. The framework is based on four strategies, which came about through layered analysis of the Yarra River system and lessons from precedents. The strategies cover the themes of: (1 & 2) resilient and (re)connected riparian ecological networks, (3) improved riparian water buffer capacity, and (4) improved human-river connections. These are translated into design principles and tested at two scales, a system-wide vision and two detailed interventions, demonstrating how site-specific strategies can contribute to corridor-wide resilience.
The design interventions focus on restoring ecological structure and function through riparian revegetation, increasing water retention capacity, and enabling public engagement with the river’s seasonal dynamics. Slow recreation, visible flood indicators, and reshaped riverbanks form part of a broader effort to reframe the river not as a threat, but as a living system to be experienced and understood.
The outcome is a spatially adaptable and place-sensitive framework that bridges ecological and social needs. While specific to the Yarra River, the approach offers relevant insights for other urbanised river systems seeking to reconnect fragmented corridors, improve hydrological performance, and promote deeper human-river connections through landscape-based design.
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We are living in a time period commonly referred to as the Anthropocene, with the rapid and disruptive reshaping of landscapes standing out as a key feature. This restructuring is evident in the Netherlands, where the landscape has shifted from a natural and connected system to a human-altered and fragmented one due to interventions in natural areas, either by removing or isolating them. The result is a patchwork of remaining greenspace scattered between buildings, infrastructure, industry, and agriculture, leading to lost ecological and social connections and posing serious challenges to biodiversity, climate resilience, and quality of life.

At the same time, urban regions are under growing pressure from the need for one million new homes in the coming years. One of the areas where this urbanisation will take place is the city triangle region in the IJsselvalley. With its unique location between the Veluwe and the IJssel river, this region represents both the vulnerability and potential of urban-rural transition zones. Its patchwork landscape reflects past disruptions, while its ambitious housing goals threaten to intensify the fragmentation of remaining open space.

In a time of dominance over nature, I propose a pro-active concept of a Regional Landscape Park to find a new balance by protecting as well as developing nature and landscape. Rather than living in opposition to nature, we must learn to cooperate with it. To avoid further degradation, we must rethink the development of urban regions and let the landscape guide our actions. This includes steering urbanisation toward a more harmonious relationship with the land.
The central question guiding this thesis is: how can a Regional Landscape Park in the Stedendriehoek area, situated between the Veluwe and the IJssel, be utilised to protect and develop nature and landscape, raise awareness, and guide urban growth? Focusing on the Stedendriehoek area, the study analyses the spatial concept of a Regional Landscape Park, assesses the current state of its components, and identifies design principles and strategies tailored to the IJsselvalley context.

The resulting proposal introduces the concept of a Mosaic Park, a dynamic spatial vision that embraces landscape diversity and invites people to move through distinct yet connected environments with shared spatial characteristics. The design is structured around three interconnected layers: ecology, climate adaptivity, and recreation and identity. It proposes a guiding framework to balance ecological, social, and economic values in future development. As urbanisation continues to pressure remaining greenspaces, this thesis presents the Regional Landscape Park as a landscape-centered strategy for designing more sustainable and connected ways of living. ... Read more

The historic center of Naples, recognized and protected as a UNESCO World Heritage site, faces pressing climatical and social challenges, including urban heat islands, desertification processes, tourism challenges and a lack of public space. Beneath its vibrant streets lies a network of underground tuff stone excavations that evolved from building the city above with its underground material. Its forgotten subterranean water landscape of aquifers, aqueducts, cisterns and channels serves as a continuous structure within the layeredness of the subterranean world and bares untapped potential for urban resilience and landscape-based urban development. This system was dug out by hand and therefore consists of human-scale underground spaces. This setting provides conditions that lead to the potential of redefining the understanding of public space in Naples: It is about connecting the surface with the underground public spaces through the water system. As the water still flows beneath the city, this thesis explores how these underground water structures can reactivate the system it runs through as well as the city’s surface public spaces, as a landscape infrastructure that creates better conditions alongside its reach. By connecting subterranean public spaces, aqueducts and cisterns through landscape-based design interventions to surface-level public spaces, the project envisions a socio-ecologically inclusive and climate-adaptive public space network that mitigates the city’s vulnerabilities while fostering creating identity and a common sense of belonging to the former water city Naples. The research maps the existing subterranean infrastructure and its spatial and functional relationships to the public spaces above it. Case studies, fieldwork and photogrammetry data inform strategies for transforming Naples from a two-dimensional into a three-dimensional heritage and climate-adaptive city. The project includes design explorations at multiple scales, combining architectural, ecological, and cultural elements to create surface- and subsurfacelevel public spaces that cool the city and people, enhance social interaction, a sense of belonging, and celebrate Naples’ water heritage again. This work contributes to the discourse on how heritage cities can adapt to future challenges by utilizing landscape-based urbanism approaches that prioritize the vertical logic of the landscape, resilience, inclusivity, and sustainability. ... Read more

This research explores how landscape gradients can shape a new urbanisation framework for Nusantara, Indonesia’s planned capital city. As Jakarta struggles with rising sea levels and the pressures of climate change, the creation of Nusantara offers a rare opportunity to rethink the relationship between urban development and ecological systems on a grand scale.

Nusantara’s development site is located on the island of Borneo, between mountainous rainforests and estuarine mangroves. Much of the lowland rainforest in the area was converted into agricultural land and production forest in the 1900s, resulting in the fragmented landscape seen today. The natural gradient transitions between landscape typologies, which allow species movement, foster biodiversity, and carry cultural significance, have been disrupted by logging, agriculture, infrastructure, and mining. Since Nusantara is situated along a broad spatial gradient from the hilly rainforest to the mangroves, an alternative planning approach is required to preserve and regenerate these landscape structures.

This research explores whether landscape gradients can serve as a formative force in Nusantara’s development. The study begins with an analysis of the historical, spatial, ecological, and cultural characteristics of the site to uncover its underlying logic for subsequent design exploration. A collection of principles for designing with landscape gradients emerges from fieldwork and research, offering potential for future research. Key locations identified in the vision are developed in greater detail to illustrate the spatial quality of the proposed framework. ... Read more

The Indonesian government is planning a new capital city in East-Kalimantan, Borneo, called Nusantara. The total appointed area for Nusantara is 56.000ha, including areas for urban development, nature reserves, industrial, and agricultural areas . The city should support two million residents in 2045. The area is in a severely degraded state caused by large scale deforestation, oil palm and eucalypt plantations, coal mining and uncontrolled urbanization. The remnants of the original ecosystems, including dipterocarp lowland forest and mangroves, are small in size and largely fragmented. Soils are impoverished, polluted, compacted and eroded. Water runs off quickly over the exposed lands, causing flooding, erosion and water shortages. The Indonesian government aims to build a ‘green, sustainable forest-city’, and to take the development of the area as an opportunity to restore ecosystems on site. In the current plans, this aim seems to be consolidated through appointing large nature reserves for restauration and a large urban area separately. The aim of this thesis is to integrate urbanisation with the restoration of the natural systems through design. Two challenges are addressed: the existing problems in the landscape, and the design of a context - sensitive future city. Many aspects of these two challenges are bound by water as an essential substance (H20) and as a force shaping physical landscapes, culture and power relations. Beyond being the connecting factor, water can be a formative power for design, creating long-term sustainability through integrating natural system dynamics. The main concepts to create an integrated approach with water as a formative power for design are derived from Landscape Based Urbanism and Design With Nature. The thesis reconsiders the large-scale planning of Nusantara with a vision and elaborates this vision through designs on the smaller scale that result in socially and ecologically valuable spaces. ... Read more

This research investigates the transitional landscape between the Port of Rotterdam and Voorne-Putten Island, with the objective of reconfiguring the relationship between natural systems and anthropogenic environments through the lens of landscape infrastructure. Situated at the forefront of the Rhine-Meuse Delta, this region has been substantially altered by land reclamation, industrial development, and urban expansion. These interventions have resulted in compounded spatial and ecological challenges, including freshwater scarcity, landscape fragmentation, land-use conflicts, and heightened vulnerability to climate change. The freshwater lake system—once a vital ecological and productive resource—is now increasingly compromised by saltwater intrusion, intensive agricultural practices, urban runoff, and extreme climatic events.

Informed by the theoretical framework of landscape-based urbanism, this study proposes the reorganization of hydrological-ecological networks, agroecological systems, and industrial-port functions through the implementation of multi-scalar landscape infrastructures. At the regional scale, the research identifies critical spatial tensions within the existing infrastructural landscape and proposes three interrelated strategies: a dynamic, climate-adaptive network; an ecologically inclusive network; and a network that fosters spatial identity and collective experience. The design methodology integrates spatial and temporal dimensions, positioning landscape infrastructure as a catalyst for the sustainable transformation of port-related territories and their surrounding productive landscapes.

By conceptualizing infrastructure as an operative structure, the project transcends conventional functionalist paradigms, embedding ecological, socio-cultural, and aesthetic dimensions into its design. The research demonstrates the potential of landscape to mediate between urban-industrial systems and vulnerable ecological zones, offering both a spatial prototype and a methodological contribution to the discourse on resilient urban development in deltaic territories. ... Read more

Coastal ecosystems are increasingly vulnerable to the intensifying impacts of climate change, urban expansion, and industrial development. In Balikpapan Bay, East Kalimantan, Indonesia, mangrove degradation poses serious ecological, social, and economic risks—especially in light of the development of Indonesia’s new capital, Nusantara. This thesis explores an integrated approach to mangrove regeneration that seeks to balance environmental restoration with ongoing socioeconomic development pressures. By applying socio-spatial strategies that emphasise site potential, the project investigates how place-specific interventions can strengthen social-ecological resilience—fostering healthy ecosystems that adapt to climate change while supporting the livelihoods and cultural values of coastal communities.

Grounded in the concepts of designing with nature, people, and synergy, the research combines spatial analysis, field observations, stakeholder engagement, and design exploration. Taking the landscape as a departure point, the project identifies leverage points within governance structures and community practices to enable collaborative restoration. It proposes spatial frameworks for multiple strategic sites, incorporating nature-based solutions, adaptive land use, and community-driven ecotourism and aquaculture. In doing so, the project reimagines mangrove landscapes as resilient socio-ecological systems. The findings offer insights for coastal planning and climate adaptation in Indonesian estuarine and deltaic regions facing similar challenges. ... Read more

This thesis investigates the practical connection between health-promoting evidence and the spatial design of blue spaces. This endeavour aims to develop instrumental resources that facilitate the integration of the health benefits of natural environments into actionable strategies, thereby augmenting the development of design research and enhancing understanding of the nature-health nexus. The research methodically examines three interrelated aspects: understanding the academic contexts and methodological preparation from the design perspective, development of qualitative and quantitative design knowledge for fulfilling health benefits of blue spaces, and applications and reflections on proposed knowledge through design workshops and interviews. Initially, the thesis outlines the relationship between blue space and health from a design perspective, identifying a significant, unexplored gap. It then proposes a methodological framework to translate health-promoting evidence of blue spaces into design knowledge for practices. Subsequently, this thesis employs interdisciplinary techniques, integrating both qualitative and quantitative approaches, to generate varied types of design knowledge, including distilling worldwide precedent cases, summarising diverse geospatial and visualisation tools, and translating site-based evidence using spatiotemporal crowdsourcing data. The effectiveness and usability of the proposed knowledge are evaluated through design workshops, complemented by expert interviews across various fields, providing insights that reflect on the research outcomes and suggest future directions. Overall, by focusing on the interactive relationship between research and design, the principal contribution of this research lies in its attempt to translate theoretical evidence from public health into practical design interventions, exploring the potential of interdisciplinary tools and methods in facilitating this process. ... Read more

Reykjavík is a coastal city in Iceland facing growing challenges from climate change, urbanization, and overwhelmed infrastructure. Throughout this research, the primary objective is to explore the potential of a landscape-based blue-green network to enhance climate resilience and serve as a foundational element for water management, ecological inclusivity, and sustainable urban development in Reykjavík’s historical center. Research questions were formulated to provide a framework for investigating the evolution of Reykjavík’s socio-ecological system, understanding the challenges and potentials associated with current dynamics, and exploring how landscape-based approaches can address these challenges effectively and become applicable spatial design. A comprehensive methodology is employed, encompassing an extensive research and literature review on the applied theories of landscape resilience, and landscape based urbanism with focus on Reykjavík’s historical center. Nature based solutions and sponge-city principles are used as a methodological approach to develop design interventions applicable to the urban context of Reykjavík. The findings indicate that by establishing a blue-green network with integrated hydro- and ecologically inclusive design principles, in- creased climate resiliency can be attained and such network contributes to the goals of the municipal plan of Reykjavík, the ambitious goals of gaining carbon neutrality before the year 2040 in Reykjavík, as well as it complies with tightened requirements on water management for all countries in the European Economic Area (EEA). In summary, this research underscores the significance of landscape-based design approaches for increased climate resilience by establishing a green-blue structure where nature, people and urban development provide a cornerstone for Reykjavík's future resilience. ... Read more

Drought resilience poses a significant challenge for the Mediterranean in today’s climate crisis, given its already semi-arid conditions. The Tagus Basin in the Iberian Peninsula is a vital water source for agricultural activities and hydropower. Despite agreements under the Albufeira Convention to share transboundary river outputs between Spain and Portugal, the accelerating impact of global climate change has intensified water source depletion during dry seasons. This strain has pushed communities to overextend resources to meet water demands. In 2022, Spain declared it would no longer fully honor its responsibilities, prioritizing its citizens’ needs due to severe water scarcity. From local community scales, to regional and territorial scales, there was a lack of understanding and collaboration between the systems of the environment, society and governance. This has led to an exacerbation of these socio-ecological issues, leaving many communities in the agricultural industry struggling to make ends meet.
This thesis explores the concept of water-landscape commons as a collaborative medium for the environment, communities, and governance, a junction where these three intersect. The design of the commons will be represented, similarly, in three layers: systems of the environment, systems of society and systems of governance. The environmental systems will define the spatial boundaries and elements of the commons, while societal systems will explore community roles in maintaining and benefiting from the commons. Finally, governance systems will outline the responsibilities of different administrative layers and the processes essential for supporting the commons’ maintenance. ... Read more

As a community of life on Earth, humanity's fate has always been tied to this blue planet. However, human activities continuously impact the Earth's ecology, hydrology, and geography. Since entering the industrial society, these impacts have accelerated in speed and intensity. Consequently, excessive emissions have led to rising sea levels and the exacerbation of the urban heat island effect, significantly affecting coastal cities.

Coastal cities are attractive as they offer a more moderate climate, diverse natural ecosystems, access to water for commerce ports and recreation, and an entryway to the hinterland through rivers that connect with oceans. However, as many coastal cities are in low-lying areas and prone to land subsidence, they are vulnerable to coastal flooding and will only become more vulnerable in the face of rising sea levels and more frequent storms. At the same time, rising sea levels and extreme climate changes lead to more frequent hurricanes, exacerbating the severity of urban flooding. The types of floods include areal flooding, riverine flooding, coastal flooding, and urban flooding. Floods can originate from the adjacent ocean, stormwater, or rivers.

Cities, therefore, need to adapt themselves to these changes. The answer lies within the cities themselves. This project will use Jacksonville, Florida, as a design case, addressing urban issues through the implementation of a blue-green infrastructure network. Blue-green infrastructure is a meticulous landscape strategy that can be applied to streets, houses, parks, and other areas. It slows down stormwater runoff and includes measures to protect land from flooding, provide high-quality green spaces, enhance ecological benefits, and improve urban resilience. Additionally, this project will discuss how blue-green infrastructure can strive to achieve spatial equity in American society, enhance community safety and cohesion, and address community segregation to a certain extent. ... Read more

The Metropolitan Region Rotterdam-The Hague (MRDH) is a new geographic region and governance entity established in 2015. The OECD's report notes that, like many metropolitan regions, MRDH's discourse on spatial planning issues is limited by rivalry among guidelines from the traditional province-municipality administrative structure. Such a dilemma can lead to uncoordinated urban development trajectory and landscape fragmentation in the future metropolization process.

This project aims to develop a landscape-based metropolitan park structure (MPS) design framework to safeguard the essential landscape values for achieving sustainable urban transformation in MRDH. Based on the understanding and diagnosis of the MRDH complex urban system, the project carries out a targeted MPS design framework, which includes principles for MRDH's long-term visions and correspondent strategies for short-term interventions. It also encompasses a robust MPS network planning map and list of strategic locations with one local scale design as an example to elaborate how the framework contributes to sustainable urban transformation in multiscale. The MPS approach, differing from traditional metropolitan models, balances ecological preservation with urban development, promoting harmonious coexistence between humans and nature. By extending green spaces and promoting slow transportation through cultural and historical routes, the MPS fosters sustainable urban transformation. Overcoming traditional governance limitations, the MPS demonstrates a holistic approach to metropolitan spatial development, balancing socio-economic and ecological goals through ecosystem services. ... Read more