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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Danube river is Europe’s second largest and flows east from Germany to the Black sea through diverse foothills and plains. On the river bank of the midstream in the Vojvodina region, focus area of this thesis, the city of Novi Sad lies. As a result of agricultural practice and urban settlements in the former floodplain, the Danube river became constrained. On the left bank of the Danube at Novi Sad, a relic of the dynamic midstream river processes lies, a river island called Kamenička ada.

In the context of Novi Sad, the human impact on the river landscape is evident and has led to a polluted and partly chopped up system with cut-off floodplains. Less space is left for the riparian zone and the river channels, which means increase of flood risk. Important dynamic river processes, such as erosion, sedimentation and occasional floodings are undermined in these areas, resulting in deteriorating ecological quality and a static environment. The former characteristic braided river with multiple channels and river islands have become a rare sight.

Focus lies on tackling three main issues related to the water, the ecology and the culture: the components that form the layered landscape. The first issue is related to the unbalanced amount of fresh water, which means the flood risk and the droughts. The second focus is the loss of the typical braided system with the riparian ecological zone. At last, the relationship between the people of Novi Sad and its public space is highlighted: the disconnection between the locals and the river floodplain. Due to the complexity of ownership of public space in the Yugoslavia period, the connection is neglected.

Kamenička ada, a former river island, has the potential to mitigate these issues and become a project example for spatial development based on a landscape approach. Therefore, the aim is of this thesis is to develop a landscape-based regeneration strategy for the Danube at Novi Sad and to demonstrate the potential of a landscape approach for designing a social-ecological inclusive and flood proof island, Kamenička Ada.

The issues are tackled by using a landscape approach, which takes the landscape structure and processes as foundation for spatial development. From this approach the importance of nature based solutions are understood and applied, together with an understanding of urban and ecological resilience and the interconnections in the river system. The layers of the landscape, the water, the ecology and culture are guiding principles throughout the research.

The result of this research is an analysis and understanding of the challenges and potentials for the spatial development of Novi Sad and the translation of four spatial strategies to design principles. Secondly an application in the form of a strategic vision for the river island Kamenička ada and a reflection on the connection of the river island to the bigger context. Kamenička ada becomes an example for landscape based and resilient spatial development in the urban context of the river for the midstream of the Danube. 

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.

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.

Tokyo has a long history dealing with water in the urban landscape. As early as the 6th century, canals have been dug for transport and drainage. Japanese people lived in a harmonious balance with the coastal landscape. This principle is called satoumi, ‘sato’ means people living and ‘umi’ means coastal landscape and describes a productive relationship where humans and nature benefit from the landscape. Due to heavy urbanisation, this principle has been forgotten, and Tokyo has implemented engineering solutions for their flooding problems, such as placing tetrapods in front of the coast, and reclaiming land for industry. By blocking natural processes, the risk of flooding only increased, especially in times of climate change. By studying precedence, such as case studies, this project aims to explore a design solution, using a landscape-based approach. Principles will be derived from literature research, and implemented into context by research through design, an iterative process. One strategy that emerges from this approach is the stimulation of sedimentation and erosion as a means of coastal protection. By allowing sediment to accumulate in certain areas and erode in others, we can create softer edges along the coastline that not only provide natural habitat for flora and fauna but also act as a buffer against wave energy. These places can provide opportunities for human activities such as seaweed farming, revitalising the principle of satoumi into the landscape. In the riverine landscape, softer edges mean a diversity in flow and a gradient for ecology to thrive. Humans and nature can share the landscape, there is no need for a hard border if both are treated with respect. In the urban landscape, cultural quality is increased by respecting the border of the land reclamation, visible in the urban fabric. This will be emphasized by Japanese garden elements, respecting the traditional values of Japan. It’s essential to recognize that the landscape is not something to be dominated and controlled by humans but rather a complex system that we can learn from and collaborate with. By embracing the principles of landscape-based design, which prioritize multifunctionality and the integration of human and natural processes, we can create landscapes that are not only resilient to environmental challenges but also rich in cultural and ecological significance.
This project can be an example on working with climate adaptation, cultural qualities, and ecological importance. Even so, I hope this project can be an inspiration to future generations, on how landscape can provide us the tools for a sustainable future. When enough projects take this approach, there will be lots of different outcomes, each representing a different part on the spectrum of landscape architecture. It is unreasonable to think that this project on its own will make much of a difference, but I like to think that it can spark a new approach towards climate resilience.

The Pearl River Delta (PRD) has always been one of the centers of gravity for China's economic development. Over the past few decades, the PRD has been undergoing urban development at an astonishing rate, but this development momentum has begun to wane in recent years. The development dividend initially gained from the manufacturing industry is gradually diminishing, and the whole region is facing a transformation. To meet the needs of the manufacturing industry, many rural villages have rented out their land to factories, and the living space for farmers and fishermen has been continuously reduced. Pollution brought about by the establishment of factories has also seriously affected the water system of the Pearl River, bringing about the extinction of aquatic organisms.

Not all groups of people have enjoyed the dividends of economic development in the Pearl River Delta. Especially the fishermen among the marginalized people, their living space and production sources are threatened by urban expansion. However, fishermen, as the first to settle in the Pearl River Delta and have lived on the land for thousands of years, have their unique wisdom about the land and the water system. Therefore, the project hopes to help the region achieve sustainable development from the perspective of the fishermen while ensuring their livelihoods.

The project has developed a core fishermen's habitat framework through theoretical research. Firstly, based on this framework, the project collected data and information on typical fishing villages classified the fishing villages in the Pearl River Delta (PRD), and summarized their specific elements. Secondly, the project selected one of the fishing villages for design exploration, exploring specific habitat modifications and area-specific planning strategies. Finally, the design logic implemented in the design exploration was utilized to examine the principles of the other two types of fishing villages, and a relatively feasible way of application was proposed.

Landscape has always embodied the mutual compromise between man and nature. In the past, humans have forced nature to make compromises, leading to the increasingly severe ecological degradation problems today. It is time to think differently about the relationship between man and nature, so the project hopes to help the residents of the Pearl River Delta, and nature reach a new coexistence through the means of landscape modification, which will no longer be a relationship of forcing one party to compromise, but rather a relationship of balanced development.

As the "rice bowl" of Vietnam, the Mekong Delta provides a large amount of agricultural products for Vietnam and the world. Over the years, the government has dramatically altered the landscape of the Mekong Delta in order to maintain existing production patterns. When production conflicts with the natural environment, governments choose to use a series of rigid water management facilities such as dykes, sluices, and wells to control and utilize the water. However, these facilities exacerbate problems such as saline intrusion and flooding, which in turn cause a decline in crop yields. As the climate changes, sea levels will gradually rise and the seasonal distribution of precipitation will become more uneven. When the government chooses to rely on these facilities to control the water system, higher dams, more sluices, and more wells will be needed, which will also further exacerbate water problems. Therefore, when people fight against water, the relationship between people and water is trapped in a vicious circle.

In fact, within natural landscape systems, there is potential for mitigating water problems in their own right. At the same time, the richness of local production practices and traditional wisdom offer opportunities for change. It is therefore more sustainable for the communities living here to be aware of these potentials and to think differently, not by trying to control the water, but by making changes in themselves following the changes in the water environment.

The project views the landscape as a system, integrating challenges and opportunities at all layers through layered analysis, historical analysis, and cross-scale design. The landscape approach is utilized to create a framework at a large scale within which nature is given space to fulfill its potential while providing a toolbox to guide spontaneous change by local people. By combining large-scale planning with a small-scale design, the ecological resilience of the landscape is enhanced and a new system of resilient landscapes is constructed to address problems, and even respond to climate change.

'Satoyama 2.0.' presents an integrated approach within landscape architecture, establishing an inclusive framework for managing river landscapes, using Japan as a paradigm. The thesis proposes the integration of ecological preservation, cultural revitalization, and urban resilience into the design and management of river ecosystems. Prioritizing sustainable principles and strategies, interventions aim to understand and respect the diverse forms of existence, both human and non-human, interconnected with the river and its natural systems.

Across research through design and design through research, this project develops and implements practices that mitigate the harmful impacts of modern development and occupation while fostering environmental management and cultural continuity. Advocating for a holistic approach that prioritizes harmony between human activities and the natural landscape, the proposition aims to promote the long-term sustainability and resilience of river landscapes, with Kameoka serving as a paradigm for these efforts.

Categorizing landscapes into headwaters, hillsides, and flatlands, and employing a layer-based analysis, this design strategy interprets the dynamic interactions between humans and nature. Utilizing controlled flooding strategies and a layered approach to sustainable riverine landscape management ‘Satoyama 2.0.’ aims to mitigate the harmful impacts of modern development while fostering environmental management and cultural continuity. Bridging tradition and sustainability through agriculture practices intertwines cultural rituals and modern conservation efforts, ensuring the preservation of the ecological and spiritual sacredness of the Satoyama forest.

We live in a world of constant change, driven by human activities that have had an unprecedented impact on our planet’s geology and ecosystems, fundamentally reshaping environments worldwide. Coastal environments, with their complex land-sea, human-nature interactions, are among the most fragile and are constantly under the influence of natural and human processes. For decades, these processes moved in harmony, but as populations grew, so did the demand for resources, land and the development of infrastructure, such as dams, dikes, transport networks and coastal management interventions. The fixation of coastlines and inland systems, driven by contemporary artificial human activity, is an often unintended consequence.

The Wadden Sea Region, known for its extensive mudflats, salt marshes and diverse flora and fauna, is an example of how human intervention has had a significant impact on the form and systems of the transition zone between sea and land, or the coastal interface. Over thousands of years, the region has been shaped by the interaction of sea, land and human influences, resulting in a gradient of vital coastal habitats for numerous species and providing many ecosystem services for local and (inter)national economic prosperity. In recent decades, however, human interventions have increasingly altered the region’s coastal interface, largely disrupting the dynamic exchange of energy and materials through land reclamation and infrastructure development. The separation of land and sea has resulted in the loss of the gradual gradients that were once a defining feature of the Wadden Sea Region, along with the region’s identity of ‘living with water’. This has meant the additional loss of vital habitats and ecosystem services provided by the sea for decades, and the overall loss of socio-ecological resilience of the interface system. Now, with the increasing pressures of climate change and human needs on the complex system of the Wadden Sea region, its landscape faces serious challenges now and in the future. A new balance needs to be found between human activities and the conservation and restoration of the unique natural and cultural values of the Wadden Sea Region.

The research aims to explore the potential of a new interface framework that restores the landscape gradient between land and sea in harmony with natural processes and cultural values. The intention is to increase the overall social and ecological resilience of the interface system through the development of landscape-based design principles and design interventions, which will be tested at different temporal and spatial scales. The northern Netherlands will serve as a regional test-bed for innovative forms of production and living along the future interface, where the proposed design layout is based on analysis of coastal geomorphological processes, historical practices, landscape structures and existing water structures.