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The University of Hong Kong Division of Landscape Architecture Annual 2025-2026

Table of Contents INTRODUCTION TO THE DIVISION

MASTER OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE (MLA)

>MLA THESIS

>MLA DESIGN STUDIOS

POSTGRADUATE DIPLOMA IN LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE (PDLA)

114

>FOUNDATION STUDIOS

116

BACHELOR OF ARTS IN LANDSCAPE STUDIES BA(LS)

128

> THAI-MYANMAR BORDER STUDIO

130

>BA(LS) DESIGN STUDIOS

134

PLANTING + ECOLOGY

154

TECHNOLOGY + PRACTICE

162

REPRESENTATION + MEDIA

174

HISTORY + THEORY

188

MASTER OF SCIENCE IN CONSERVATION MSc(CONSERVATION) 200 >CONSERVATION THESIS

206

MASTER OF SCIENCE IN SUSTAINABLE ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN MSc(SED)

230

>MSc(SED) DISSERTATION

236

ELECTIVES + INTERDISCIPLINARY COURSES

248

MPHIL/ PHD

274

KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE & RESEARCH

282

FIELD TRIPS

320

PEOPLE

344 3

Material Ecologies (Common Core)

Landscape Plants and Ecology I (PDLA)

Stone & Sea Studio (BA(LS))

INTRODUCTION TO THE DIVISION Ivan VALIN Associate Professor of Practice Head, Division of Landscape Architecture

The 2025–2026 Annual for the Division of Landscape Architecture presents a selection of outstanding student work and teaching across our five degree programmes in landscape architecture, heritage conservation, and sustainable environmental design. Each programme has a distinct educational mission, yet together they share a commitment to improving our built and natural environments by educating students within a culture of collaboration, critical inquiry, creativity, and responsible engagement with the communities and ecosystems they serve. The Division’s diverse staff provides students with a wide range of knowledge and expertise, grounded in world-class research and innovative design practice. Together with a dynamic group of invited guests, researchers, adjunct professors, alumni, professional practitioners, and community members, our students encounter a broad range of perspectives and skills that greatly enhance their core education. Hong Kong is the ‘living laboratory’ that grounds this educational approach, and we frequently engage with the city’s dense urban fabrics, intertwined infrastructural networks, steep topography, protected landscapes, and rich cultural histories to understand the complex interactions between natural and built systems. Studying in Hong Kong also offers ready opportunities to explore the wider region of East and Southeast Asia through travelling studios, structured field trips, interdisciplinary workshops, and student exchange programmes. Against this diverse backdrop 10

of socioeconomic and ecological contexts, we explore the urgent issues arising from unconstrained and rapid urbanization, including ecological degradation, community displacement, habitat loss, and climaterelated threats. Central to our teaching is the capacity to work across scales and to synthesize multiple forms of knowledge encountered in these different locales. Our ability to collaborate with the communities, institutions, and professionals at work in this region equips our students with a unique toolkit for new forms of impact, challenging them to imagine new modes of practice and alternative forms of agency in a rapidly changing world. Students in the Division have substantial resources to draw upon, including the Faculty of Architecture’s own shared facilities, such as a newly renovated fabrication workshop and an expanded robotics laboratory. Following HKU’s progressive mission, we are steadily incorporating emerging technologies—such as advanced digital tools, environmental simulation, and AI—into our curriculum and challenging students to incorporate these new methods into their work. At the same time, our landscape and conservation programmes, in particular, maintain a strong emphasis on fieldwork and situated practice. Sitebased observation and direct engagement of specific communities and ecologies are hallmarks of effective landscape design and conservation practice. Learning how to work in the field, to read systems of complexity and time, and to serve communities is a vital skill not easily replaced by remote data or disembodied intelligence. The material gathered in the following pages—student work; courses; events, activities, and initiatives; the field trips in Hong Kong and abroad; and the collaborations and partnerships we have undertaken—all depend on the immense efforts and dedication of our staff, teaching assistants, administrators, and invited guests. Finally, we extend our gratitude to our students for their hard work and dedication to excellence in the Division of Landscape Architecture, year after year. 11

MASTER OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE (MLA) Bin JIANG Associate Professor, Programme Director (MLA), Division of Landscape Architecture

The Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA) is a twoyear postgraduate degree accredited by the Hong Kong Institute of Landscape Architects. The program is committed to teaching landscape architecture as an interdisciplinary field, integrating core competencies with developments in planning, conservation, urbanism, and ecology. The curriculum tackles critical social, economic, and environmental issues within Southeast Asia and the Greater Bay Area, addressing both urban and rural contexts to solve density and development challenges. The course structure is divided into tracks, including design studios, history and theory, technology, and media. The initial studio examines landscape systems and public realm along Hong Kong’s coastal trail, while subsequent studios in Ho Chi Minh City and Chiang Mai involve fieldwork and community engagement. Advanced studios explore biodiversity, tectonics, rapid urbanization, and infrastructure. The program culminates with an individual thesis, covering a broad array of subjects such as environmental conflicts and advocacy, landscape conservation and heritage, and the exploration of landscape design and planning practices across the region.

Programme Structure

Year 1 Fall Semester

Spring Semester

Studio 1

Studio 2

Landscape Media

Landscape Plants and Ecology 1

Landscape Technology 1

Landscape Technology 2

Landscape History and Theory I

Landscape History and Theory 2

Year 2 Fall Semester

Spring Semester

Studio 3

Thesis

Landscape Plants and Ecology 2

Landscape Architectural Practice

Thesis Prep

Elective

MLA THESIS

The Landscape Thesis is a year-long, student-led design and research project that caps our Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA) program. The thesis project gives our students the opportunity to define and explore their own individual interests and positions on contemporary landscape architecture while synthesizing the knowledge and skills gained from their landscape education at HKU. Thesis projects also provide a crucial platform for discussion and debate among students, advisors, mentors, and the wider academic and professional community of landscape architects, architects, planners, ecologists, sociologists, and geographers who are invited to jury the students’ presentations. These debates about the practices, theories, and methods of landscape architecture and its important role in environmental stewardship strongly define the ambition of landscape architecture at HKU. Students begin with the Thesis Preparation course, which covers the primary methods and positioning of landscape architectural research and guides students in drafting a research statement, case studies, and literature review. Students work with their advisor through one of several tracks of Final Thesis Review panel discussion landscape research that help align students’ interests and ambitions broadly with their advisors’ domains of knowledge. Student theses this year resounded landscape architecture’s principal role in bridging the architectural, civil engineering, and planning fields with ecological science and environmental conservation.

Students’ theses covered a wide range of topics, including environmental and humanitarian conflicts, public participation and advocacy, artificial intelligence, smart cities, and landscape conservation and heritage, as well as challenging the status quo of design and planning practices in sites across Hong Kong, greater China, and Southeast Asia.

MLA Thesis

Whose Agricultural Landscape? Historic Landscape Characterisation and land genealogies to counter technocracy in state agricultural planning in Hong Kong Tsz Shan TSUI, Iris Advisor: Ashley Scott KELLY Agriculture in Hong Kong has shifted from a locally sustaining industry to a marginalized land use increasingly fragmented by development, infrastructure, and village-edge urbanization since the 1970s. The Hong Kong government’s 2016 New Agricultural Policy proposed Agricultural Priority Areas (APAs) to identify high-quality farmland, support active farming, and guide agricultural assistance, permitted uses, and subsidies. Yet APAs remain ungazetted, with uncertain implementation that risk privileging generalized land quality over the lived infrastructures, histories, and practices that make farming viable. This problem is sharpened by the Northern Metropolis, a major state development strategy in northern Hong Kong, where farmland is simultaneously framed as a resource for modernization, conservation, and urban expansion. This thesis examines Tsiu Keng, a farming village affected by the development of the Agricultural Park, a hub to facilitate agro-technology, modern farm management and knowledge transfer, to ask how APA planning might better recognize community-defined agricultural value. Farmers’ concerns over water shortages, irrigation maintenance, land access, and farming continuity reveal a mismatch between state agricultural planning and village-scale agrarian realities, where productivity depends on ongoing labour and collective maintenance. Drawing on landscape archaeologist Mick Atha’s Historic Landscape Characterisation (HLC) pilot study for Hong Kong, this thesis develops a community-led cultural mapping framework that adapts HLC to foreground irrigation infrastructure, land genealogies, maintenance practices, and locally specific landscape types. GIS-based classification is used as a supporting tool, but the project’s central method is a participatory reinterpretation of agricultural landscape character. By making hidden agricultural systems legible, this thesis reframes APA planning beyond static land categories and toward historically grounded, community-informed agricultural protection. It argues that agricultural value must be understood not only through soil, area, or productivity, but through the social and infrastructural relations that sustain farming futures in Hong Kong’s contested rural landscapes.

MLA Thesis

Tsz Shan TSUI, Iris

The Mirror of Digital Metabolism A Dual-Site Strategy for E-Waste Remediation and Global Accountability

Jingyao WANG, Kaya Advisor: Bin JIANG

This design focuses on the spatial rupture and moral imbalance between the consumption and consequence within the global e-waste trade network. exploring the disparate realities of New York City’s consumer market and the Agbogbloshie disposal site in Ghana, my thesis proposes a transcontinental landscape intervention model. In Ghana, a 50-year “Systematic Bioremediation Matrix” is established across three stages—Isolation, Detoxification, and Rebuilding—utilizing landfill capping, living gabions, and phytoremediation to extract heavy metals and transform the polluted zone into a circular economy eco-district encompassing safe dismantling, bio-mining, and educational tourism. Simultaneously, a “Reverse Exhibition” is integrated into New York’s Central Park, forcing consumers to confront the ecological cost of digital life and establishing a direct capital flow back to remediation efforts through a QR-code sponsorship mechanism. By bridging the “healing” of Ghana with the “exposure” of New York, it creates a triple closed-loop of material, talent, and capital, aiming to remediate soil toxicity while mending the chain of global inequality to achieve a sustainable evolution of digital metabolism.

MLA Thesis

Jingyao WANG, Kaya

Eucalyptus Monoculture and Land Degradation A Dual-Strategy Model for Ecological Recovery and Livelihood Continuity in Huangmian, China Chenghan HUANG, Calvin Advisor: Francisco CEVALLOS B.

Since 2000, large-scale eucalyptus (Eucalyptus grandis x urophylla) monoculture has transformed natural mountain forests into terraced plantations through the clearance of native vegetation and slope modification for intensive production and covers approximately 70% of the hillsides. While this model was implemented by the government to support local livelihoods, this monoculture approach has also caused severe ecological fragmentation, and dramatically reduced forest patches and their connectivity. This thesis proposes a cooperative-based intercropping strategy that gradually reduces community dependence on eucalyptus by reactivating traditional economies and rehabilitating the forest in Huangmian, China. Short and long-term implementations are integrated in cycles of eighteen years with three transitional stages. Ficus hirta is intercropped with eucalyptus stands to increase income over a six-year rotation, with an estimated 30%–40% increase compared to monoculture eucalyptus cultivation. In parallel, selected rows of eucalyptus are replaced with native and adaptive tree species, such as Castanopsis hystrix and Acacia auriculiformis, restoring the diversity structure of the forest. Although this transition may reduce income by approximately 10% in the first cycle, returns are projected to increase by 40%–50% in the following cycle as diversified non-timber forest products mature. The remaining patches of native forests are protected and treated as ecological cores from which regeneration expands outward. Around these cores, productive buffer zones are established through understory intercropping, selective replacement, and staged forest succession. By 2050, forest patches are reconnected, while cooperative facilities organize cultivation, harvesting, processing, and distribution, linking households, buffer restoration, and diversified forest-product economies.

MLA Thesis

Chenghan HUANG, Calvin

Reframing the Water Edge

Reflections on Landscape Representation Through Hong Kong Boat People’s Knowledge Study

Anyi LYU, Anny Advisor: Ivan VALIN

The water-dwelling communities in Hong Kong have long inhabited a spatial world structured not by stable terrestrial boundaries, but by tidal rhythms, shifting operational ranges, and adaptive relations between land and sea. Yet within dominant governmental and land-based planning frameworks, these amphibious ways of knowing have often been marginalized, rendered informal or excluded from legitimate spatial representation. Positioned within this tension, this thesis questions conventional landscape representation rooted in fixed boundaries, territorial legibility, and land-based viewpoints, and explores how boat people’s traditional ecological knowledge offers alternative understandings of the water edge as a fluid and relational landscape. The research adopts a fragmentary mechanism of inquiry, assembling oral histories, fishing routes, tidal temporalities, ritual practices, archival traces, and spatial observations as dispersed yet connected forms of evidence. Rather than reconstructing a singular hidden narrative, these fragments operate as generative clues through which variable patterns of marine use, flexible water territories, and dynamic land–water interfaces can be inferred and spatially reinterpreted. Through this process, the water edge emerges less as a line than as a fluctuating field shaped by stewardship, temporality, and use. Building on these findings, this thesis aims to investigate how traces of the knowledge might be reactivated within contemporary increasingly fixed, land-oriented spatial and functional planning context. Through a series of water-edge interventions on Lamma Island, the project identifies residual conditions where traditional practices persist, and transforms them into sites for spatial engagement, where echoes of boat people’s ecological knowledge can re-enter contemporary tidal landscapes.

MLA Thesis

Anyi LYU, Anny

Future. Night. Forest. Resilience and Tradition of Sake Production and Cultural Preservation in Nara Prefecture

Philip King Hei WONG Advisor: Lily ZHANG

In Nara Prefecture, sake production is threatened by a paradox: a narrow focus on forest conservation has led to overgrown landscapes that cripple the agricultural economy. While policies protect these forests, the resulting shadows degrade paddy productivity and premium brewing rice quality. This imbalance challenges the definition of a healthy Satoyama and fails to deliver the “multifunctional benefits” mandated by Japan’s Forestry Basic Act. To restore this balance, this thesis proposes an integrated landscape strategy centered on a 3-Dimensional Forestry Management Plan. The data-driven plan establishes calculated zones - a cleared ‘Sun Corridor’, a ‘Transition Zone’, and a ‘Managed Grove’ - at the forest edge. This is achieved through a sustainable cycle of clear-felling overgrown trees and replanting with seedlings managed at a controlled density & height, restoring sunlight while yielding valuable timber. This harvested timber is the primary material for constructing an “AgroCultural Commons,” a community hub with shared equipment and housing for new farmers. The strategy is paired with Self-Automated Monitoring Irrigation Systems (SAMIs) that cool paddies during high night temperatures, protecting grain quality while reducing the nocturnal labor that deters younger generations. This integrated approach redefines Satoyama not as static preservation, but as active stewardship that generates economic value from a managed landscape. It offers a replicable policy framework, grounded in Japan’s Agricultural Land Act, that creates the social and economic incentives to ensure the resilience of sake production, a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage, for generations to come.

MLA Thesis

Philip King Hei WONG

From Compliance to Autonomy

A Sustainable Land Stewardship Framework for Hong Kong Wetland Conservation Park System Through Performance-Based Planning Man Huen CHEUNG, Jodie Advisor: Mathew PRYOR

Under Hong Kong’s Northern Metropolis development agenda, the proposed Sam Po Shue Wetland Conservation Park (WCP) at San Tin was regarded as the first pilot project for ecological mitigation of expected fishpond habitat loss caused by the establishment of San Tin Technopole. This thesis investigates whether conventional wetland management and financing models of wetland conservation remain valid and self-sustaining under the new urban development schemes. Taking Hong Kong and Shenzhen wetland conservation models as case studies, the research critiques traditional frameworks, such as governmentlocal Management Agreements and compliance-driven wetland compensation, which rely heavily on substantial annual funding and laborintensive implementation to meet ecological KPIs. The central argument is that wetland viability under these models may be undervalued, i.e., the wetland capacity for long-term ecological autonomy, particularly when management plans prioritize quantifiable outputs over the reproductive performance of the landscape. The study, therefore, taking Sam Po Shue WCP as a prototype, shifts the focus from compliance-driven ecological indicators toward system-temporal-based measurements that capture the wetland’s reproductive capacity and its potential to sustain ecological functions with minimal human intervention. This thesis further re-evaluates how ESG-linked funding mechanisms influence KPI selections in the design of Habitat Creation and Management Plan (HCMP), potentially reshaping what counts as “success” in wetland conservation. It proposes a new land stewardship framework that optimizes the self-sustaining capability and diversifies the productivity of wetlands through performance metrics. Finally, the thesis proposal calibrates the ratio of artificial habitats and natural ecology to enhance wetland conservation resilience beyond short-term mitigation obligations.

MLA Thesis

Man Huen CHEUNG, Jodie

Cotton Liberation

Toward Agricultural Ferality for Socio-ecological Resilience Ka Lok WONG, Victor Advisor: Susanne TRUMPF

A cotton seed escapes the field. Left untended, it germinates, adapts, and reproduces. Without agricultural inputs, these feral cottons thrive, not in yield, but in resilience. They persist where their domesticated counterparts would fail. How does feral cotton inspire us on agro-ecological resilience against water scarcity, land degradation, pests and diseases? This thesis critiques the state-controlled, technocratic model of cotton monoculture in Kashgar, Xinjiang, where cotton production is centralized, standardized, and hence fragile. Feral cotton systems and local communities are strategized to restore agro-ecological resilience through genetic heterogeneity, adaptability, and biodiversity. Communal seed breeding is proposed on the field boundaries where feral cotton flourishes. Decentralized village-level seed bank revives local and feral cotton populations, restoring genetic diversity and decision-making autonomy, fostering landraces adapted to micro-climates, and reducing dependence on standardized, state-promoted cultivars and associated input packages. Field margins are feralized into biodiversity zones that integrate local farming features (intercropping, fruit trees, and bee houses) to regenerate soil water retention capacity and soil moisture levels, supporting both feral vegetation and cultivated crops. Consequently, as feral adaptability and soil health improve, the disappearing hydrological network would be revived, through redesigning micro-topography stabilized by proposed rammed earth structures. The narrative of cotton would be reconstructed from “technological agricultural success” to a “collective project of prosperity, harmony, and interethnic cooperation.” Resilience, in both ecosystems and societies, emerges not from uniformity and control, but from variation and adaptation.

MLA Thesis

Ka Lok WONG, Victor

Scars and Traces

Reactivating the Abandoned Mine Heritage of Lin Ma Hang as Sensorial Memorials Kwan Kiu FONG, Karen Advisor: Meng Qi XU, Sonny

Hong Kong’s abandoned mines represent a forgotten cultural landscape—a series of extractive scars woven into the city’s geological and historical fabric. Current conservation paradigms often overlook these post-extractive sites, focusing narrowly on point-based heritage listing, ecological restoration, or total demolition. By prioritizing safety stabilization and hazard elimination, these interventions often favor technical checklists over the visceral heritage and sensory experience of industrial ruins. This thesis asks: How can landscape architecture move beyond rigid frameworks to design for the sensory and experiential feelings of a wounded landscape? The research establishes an inventory of Hong Kong’s mining heritage, focusing on the Lin Ma Hang Lead Mine—currently managed as an “open museum” that prioritizes geotechnical engineering and intact preservation. Analyzed through parameters like trail proximity, tunnel dimensions, and surface conditions, the site serves as a testing ground for new strategies. The project adopts a framework of “point, line, plane, and volume” to transform the mine into a sensorial memorial integrated into the regional hiking trail. It explores how site-specific themes—water, rock, sound, and light—can be amplified through methods like carving, light projection and texturing to provoke the emotions necessary for people to connect to the site’s history of labor and extraction. Design programs are calibrated to the spatial conditions of compressed passages and expansive voids to create intimate, reflective moments. The final synthesis activates Hong Kong’s post-extractive landscapes through a manual of trail integration and sensory design.

MLA Thesis

Kwan Kiu FONG, Karen

Living with Flux

Recalibrating the Impervious Mosaic of Kam Tin

Shiya XIANG, Aria Advisor: Vincci MAK

The Kam Tin floodplain in Hong Kong’s New Territories has undergone rapid surface hardening since the 1980s. Unregulated brownfield uses such as container storage, open-air parking, and logistics yards now cover 6.30% of the catchment, forming a fragmented impervious mosaic across what was once productive agricultural land. This patchwork blocks infiltration, accelerates runoff, and funnels floodwater into the villages it surrounds. Rather than advocating for wholesale clearance or rezoning, this thesis treats the brownfield mosaic as a latent hydrological framework. Through fieldwork and spatial analysis, I identify three recurring conditions at the interface between brownfield and village: the Hardfield, the Edge, and the Pocket. For each condition, I develop a set of five landscape operations: Slow, Spread, Soak, Store, and Spill, defined by geometric form and calibrated to existing drainage infrastructure, land tenure, and ground-level stakeholders. Three prototype sites test these operations across scales. Kam Tsin Wai addresses a macro brownfield encirclement; Kam Tin San Tsuen confronts a linear road severance; Yuen Kong San Tsuen works within a micro village pocket. Each prototype pairs hydrological intervention with a management strategy — negotiating Lands Department lease terms, working within Highways Department road reserves, or co-designing with village representatives — to ensure that what is built can also be maintained. The thesis contributes a replicable design vocabulary for working with, rather than against, the post-rural landscapes of the New Territories, where brownfield is not failure to be erased but ground to be recalibrated for coexistence with flooding.

MLA Thesis

Shiya Xiang, Aria

Sand Unfixed

Reframing, Reworking and Adapting Hong Kong’s Artificial Shores

Tsun Hang Ares CHAN Advisor: William SHIVERS

Hong Kong’s current practices of beach management are unsustainable. Since the 1980s, the government has engineered sandy shores into recreational beaches to meet growing public demand and new town development. Yet sand replenishment remains a short-term and reactive strategy, requiring repeated maintenance while overlooking ecological adaptability and wider coastal relationships. Beaches are predominantly managed as engineered recreational assets—flattened, cleared of seaweed and foreign objects, and replenished with imported sand after typhoons or erosion. Beyond its cost, this model can bury and erase existing beach ecosystems. This project argues that Hong Kong’s beaches should no longer be treated as static recreational products, but as dynamic socio-ecological coastal systems. Using Golden Beach in Tuen Mun as a prototype, the project rethinks the artificial beach as a landscape that can support recreation, climate adaptation, sediment processes, and habitat formation. Golden Beach exposes the contradictions of current management: rigid concrete edges, drainage outfalls, repeated sand loss, sand dumping beside the breakwater, and nearby soft coral presence beyond the bathing zone. The project develops a three-part framework: Beach Morphology, Hydrology Control, and Habitat Co-evolution. Through shore shaping, foreshore dunes, micro-topography, reef-like modules, seagrass patches, planting buffers, dead branch structures, and irregular habitat modules, the project proposes adaptive interventions that work with sediment, water, and habitat growth. Beyond Golden Beach, Hong Kong’s beach types are taxonomized and matched with transferable strategies. Implemented through phased intervention and seasonal maintenance, the project reframes repair as an evolving process rather than a constant act of replenishment.

MLA Thesis

Tsun Hang Ares CHAN

Research on Saltwater Intrusion Prevention Resilience Enhancement in Sandbar Estuaries

Take Shajiao Power Station Transition as an Example Geyi PENG, Celia Advisor: Yujun YIN

Under global climate change and sea-level rise, estuarine saltwater intrusion has become a critical threat to coastal ecological security and freshwater supply. The Pearl River Delta is highly vulnerable, where frequent salt tides cause severe soil salinization, habitat degradation, and water supply risks. Shajiao Power Station, a decommissioning coastal industrial brownfield, faces a combined stress of saltwater intrusion and legacy soil contamination, while its official planning supports post-industrial transformation into public ecological green space. This study focuses on site investigation, sample analysis, and hydrological monitoring to verify on-site salinization and pollution conditions. An innovative two-system synergistic remediation strategy is proposed: an outer coastal saltwater barrier wetland for salt interception, wave dissipation, and desalination; and an inner brownfield phytoremediation system for pollutant absorption and soil restoration. Guided by 20-year phased salinity succession, the site evolves through high-salinity transition, moderate-salinity recovery, and stable estuarine wetland. A key coupling phase occurs in Year 10–15, when hydrological connectivity and ecological feedback significantly accelerate remediation efficiency. The final system becomes self-sustaining, with controllable pollution, enhanced coastal resilience, and public accessibility. This research provides a replicable model for saltwater intrusion mitigation and brownfield transition in sandbar estuaries, supporting global coastal ecological restoration and sustainable development.

MLA Thesis

Geyi PENG, Celia

LANDSCAPE DESIGN STUDIOS

The design studio sequence exposes students to a range of scales and topics relevant to the practice of landscape architecture, with a particular focus on East and Southeast Asian geographies. The studios are designed to integrate with core courses and enable students to synthesize their growing knowledge and skills through project-based design exercises. In each of the landscape programmes, these projects begin with local sites emphasizing fieldwork, detailed observational methods, and case-study reviews. Design is positioned as the outcome of a rigorous process of interpreting a site’s spatial, material, and experiential dimensions. Later studios introduce students to a site’s socioecological complexities, by engaging with the modes of environmental design and landscape planning. A noteworthy feature of our design studio sequence is the Southeast Asia travelling studio. In the past year, students in the MLA and BA(LS) programmes spent nearly two weeks in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam and northern Thailand exploring the environmental impacts of urban and rural development and discussing critical planning issues with local stakeholders, students, and active professionals. These studios challenge the traditional boundaries of the discipline by situating landscape as a territorial practice, incorporating guided research methods, and documenting traditional or alternative forms of environmental knowledge.

Finally, advanced studios taken in the second year introduce interdisciplinary methods and independent, research-based design practice to orient students to their own future careers in the profession. Taught by regional practitioners and visiting academics, students selected from among various studio options to explore concrete fabrication technologies, propose new forms of ecological urbanism in Singapore, or plan for heritage tourism in Shenzhen.

Landscapes for Leisure Engaging Ground in Tai Po LAND7131 MLA Design Studio 1 ARCH7233 MLA Design Studio 3

Instructor: Susanne TRUMPF

Teaching Assistant: Jonson JIN

‘Landscapes for leisure’ built on the ongoing discourse on the reimagining of urban recreational spaces to foster healthier and ecologically sustainable cities. Extreme weather events and climate crisis in general have raised questions about how, or better yet, to what extent we can continue to enjoy ‘urban nature’ in the future. The studio focused on open spaces gazetted under the Leisure and Cultural Services Department, a government body responsible for the maintenance and management of Hong Kong’s leisure landscapes, such as parks, gardens, sports grounds, waterfront promenades, and beaches. These leisure landscapes, primarily developed to meet human needs, are often critiqued for their strict regulations and uniform design language. Yet they possess the potential to play a larger role in climate-adaptive urban futures, benefitting nearby communities and ecological habitats. The studio asked students to explore the potential of these places and to understand the landscapes they originate from through indepth research, site observation, drawing, and modelling. Students proposed improved spatial conditions for leisure landscapes in Tai Po and considered how investments in climate-adaptive urban spaces can directly enhance the quality of life for both human and non-human communities in Hong Kong and beyond. 70

MLA Vertical Studios

AR Projection

Philip King Hei WONG

MLA Vertical Studios

Xinran CAO, Xylah

Yuan ZHUANG, Aaron Tong WU, Wynter

Infrastructural Evolutions Hacking our Streets to Celebrate Dynamic Hybridity LAND7131 MLA Design Studio 1 ARCH7233 MLA Design Studio 3

Instructor: Jason HILGEFORT

Teaching Assistant: Jonson JIN

In our existing world, most people see the world around them as static. In reality, there are flows of infrastructures, natural networks, and datascapes constantly moving around us. The current and future potential is that our ‘built world’ could leverage and highlight more the dynamic qualities of our ever changing society. In the Greater Bay Area, we can read the legacies of communal spaces for eating and socializing. Looking at more emergent realities we can see a strong legacy of showcasing technology in our urban forms. This tradition of cities of spectacle must be embraced, celebrated and enhanced. The studio investigated the existing conditions within the streets near HKU. Learning from existing use realties, whether seasonal, informal or otherwise we will seek new forms of using our shared spaces. The goal was to identify underlying potentials for uses by humans, provide greater potentials for urban ecologies, and to harness overlooked flows in these spaces that could allow for greater communal experiences 74

MLA Vertical Studios

Huawei JIANG, Warwick

MLA Vertical Studios

Xue BAI, Bessie

The Scale of Water

New Civic Spaces along Two Bodies of Water LAND7131 MLA Design Studio 1 ARCH7233 MLA Design Studio 3

Instructor: Raffaella ENDRIZZI

Teaching Assistant: Jonson JIN

Hong Kong recorded 51 rainstorm warnings in 2025 alone. By the 2040s, hourly rainfall could exceed anything previously recorded. Rivers remain fenced off, invisible as large mitigation infrastructures, barely integrated in the urban fabric. This studio asked students to rethink these large infrastructural corridors. Working along Tai Wai and Yuen Long Nullah, they reimagined Hong Kong’s channelised waterways as civic landscapes: places of gathering, biodiversity and climate resilience. Students moved through three phases: mapping the historic, hydrological, and social flows of each river; translating observations into material and spatial fragments; and finally developing integrated proposals that weave ecology, community life, and flood resilience together. Each student was asked to find their own entry point into the same wicked problem to develop a sensitive, attuned and generative project for both nature and society. 78

MLA Vertical Studios

Xingyu ZHOU, Steven

MLA Vertical Studios

Ya DENG, Yetta

Re-thinking the Promenade in Hong Kong LAND7131 MLA Design Studio 1 ARCH7233 MLA Design Studio 3

Instructor: Mathew PRYOR

Teaching Assistant: Yapeng LIU, Olly

This studio looked to rethink the form, identity and purpose of a waterfront to respond to agendas in the design and management of the public realm such as mental and physical health, biodiversity, justice & equality, and climate change. Our site was the waterfront and adjacent unused spaces of the Eastern Channel at Tseung Kwan O (TKO). While other waterfront edges of TKO were upgraded in recent years, this section was not. Its strategic location offered opportunities for significant design intervention. However, the focus was on meaningful, buildable site design responses, functional within common waterfront conditions in Hong Kong. Our work involved critical observation with close attention to construction detail and material selection. A key aspect was using physical models to represent design ideas rather than typical 2D drawings. For inspiration, students traveled to Singapore during Reading Week, visiting and documenting waterfronts in diverse settings. Students met with landscape students and practitioners to gain deeper insight into the physical, experiential and performative values of the waterfront. 82

MLA Vertical Studios

Linyao SU, Serena

MLA Vertical Studios

Cheuk Yin CHAN, Tiger

Palimpsest Landscapes

Regenerating Oyster Shell Heritage in Traditional Villages of the Pearl River Delta LAND7131 MLA Design Studio 1 ARCH7233 MLA Design Studio 3

Instructor: Ting WANG, Sarah Teaching Assistant: Yapeng LIU, Olly

This studio introduces students to core practices in landscape planning and site design within high-density villages of the Pearl River Delta. Particular attention will be given to the archive and redesign of public spaces where oyster heritage and everyday life intersect. The studio adopts a landscape-based approach to heritage revitalization—one that focuses on context, process, and future making—and explores how this approach can serve as a foundation for developing place-based strategies for regenerating the region’s unique rural landscape. This is a timely topic, especially in an era of decelerated real estate development and incremental urban regeneration. Through surveying, modeling, representing and redesigning landscape systems and public spaces, the students will engage with design methodologies including systematic site analysis, typological study, ecological assessment, projection and iteration. 86

MLA Vertical Studios

Kwan Kiu FONG, Karen

MLA Vertical Studios

Kwan Kiu FONG, Karen Minju WU, Daisy Ran GUO, Kelly

Creating Symbolic Urban Spaces in Hyper-Density LAND7131 MLA Design Studio 1 ARCH7233 MLA Design Studio 3

Instructor: Brandon HUANG

Teaching Assistant: Yapeng LIU, Olly

In this studio, students explored how to create symbolic urban spaces in hyper-dense environments by bridging legibility and communicative landscape theories. Guided by the principles of Kevin Lynch and Robert Venturi, the curriculum examined how intellectual properties (IP) can transform public realms into engaging, vibrant destinations. Work focused on landscape design renovations across key urban sites in the Greater Bay Area. Students conducted comprehensive spatial mapping, developed unique narrative storylines, and integrated custom IP strategies alongside technical landscape details such as planting, lighting, paving, and drainage. Projects were developed through physical study models, design development packages, and short video presentations. To deepen their understanding of experiential urban design, students traveled to Osaka and Tokyo during Reading Week, documenting innovative public spaces, symbolic landmarks, and technical craftsmanship to directly inform their final proposals. 90

MLA Vertical Studios

Junting LI, Juliette

MLA Vertical Studios

Junting LI, Juliette

Into the Woods

Tectonics, Energy, Water & Satoyama LAND7131 MLA Design Studio 1 ARCH7233 MLA Design Studio 3

Instructor: Michael KOKORA

Teaching Assistant: Yapeng LIU, Olly

This studio critically explored timber tectonics and threedimensional spatial form in landscape architecture. In recent years, some of the most innovative uses of materials and creative forms have come from projects that blur the boundary between landscape architecture and architecture. These projects explore unusual construction methods or techniques that reveal the unique properties of the construction materials involved. For Japan, building creatively with timber is nothing new. It is a practice that has evolved over centuries. Complex joinery methods have been developed in response to seismic forces, humid summers (raised, passively ventilated structures) and cold winters (thermally insulating materials). Our site is located in Niseko, Japan – a popular ski area experiencing a development boom in Japan. Continued post-pandemic development in the region has led to several environmental concerns including deforestation, habitat loss, water shortages, fossil fuel consumption, and sprawling development. In most of Niseko, the Japanese concept of Satoyama has been lost. In this intensive physical model making studio, students developed experimental timber structures and explored their potential to generate energy with an integral photovoltaic array while reviving the Japanese landscape concept of Satoyama. 94

MLA Vertical Studios

Ka Lok WANG, Victor

MLA Vertical Studio

Ka Lok WANG, Victor Yan HUANG, Halsey

Invisible Space

Landscape Interventions to Promote Humanity and Equality along the City Moat in Chiang Mai,Thailand ARCH7132 Landscape Design Studio 2 Instructor: Bin JIANG

Teaching Assistant: Mutsing LI Huiwen XIANG Xueming LIU

The studio mainly focused on the impacts of landscape design on promoting humanity and equality for all types of users while having a great understanding of cultural, economic, and political context in Chiang Mai. The space should not only serve for tourism and pursuing profit for the government and main business owners. It should also serve well for many common people, which might include pedlars, small business owners, residents, homeless, etc. The studio unfolded in three stages: In the first stage, we conducted a background research to fully understand various aspects of the city and site. It provided a comprehensive and solid foundation for landscape design interventions; In the second stage, each student chose two or three potential sites from the list of sites and conducted a more specific analysis and related case study at the site scale. Then, each student proposed conceptual design for potential sites and a plan of site investigation. In the third stage, each student collected data on the site through observation, interview, and survey during the reading week. Then, each student developed a landscape design project after going back to HKU. 98

MLA Option Studios

Ziyi YAO, Yara

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MLA Option Studios

Linyao SU, Serena

Wanting XU, Vita

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From Sustainable to Regenerative

Strategies for Future Rural Landscapes in Southwestern China ARCH7132 Landscape Design Studio 2 Instructor: Jiali LI

Teaching Assistant: Mutsing LI

The studio focuses on Meiquan Village (麗江美泉) in Yunnan. The village’s major economic drivers are agriculture and tourism via horse caravans along the Ancient Tea Horse Road (茶馬古道). However, the site also features a critical wetland that serves as a migrating bird habitat. The horse manure and agricultural fertilizers are threatening the local ecology, creating significant conflicts between government policies, tourism, green groups, and local villagers. Currently, the business owner and an architectural team are proposing a new resort town to replace the current horse caravan tourism mode. Students are asked to respond to these complex site conditions and the new resort plan during the semester. The studio unfolds in three distinct phases (Project 1, Project 2, and Project 3), these phases progressively move from theoretical frameworks to systemic planning, and ultimately to design proposals. The scope expands from a regional scale to a site-specific scale, delving further into material considerations. Furthermore, students advance from initial studio research to actively engaging with stakeholders and preparing for on-site intervention. Through this exploration of diverse scales, varied roles, and enriched methodologies, students will gain a holistic and systematic understanding of regenerative rural landscape design. 102

MLA Option Studios

Zidian WANG, Lily

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MLA Option Studios

Xinyu ZHOU, Steven

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Ho Chi Minh City Futures Typologies to Overcome

ARCH7132 Landscape Design Studio 2 Instructor: Francisco CEVALLOS B.

Teaching Assistant: Yapeng LIU, Olly

Drawing on the work on ‘Material Symbolism’ developed by the anthropologist Erik Harms (2011), this MLA design studio examined the existing frictions around development within the urban and peri-urban zones of Ho Chi Minh City reflecting on the dynamic interactions and symbolic meanings of what is conceived as urban and rural spaces in this context. During this traveling design studio, students had the opportunity to learn from communities, exchange learning experiences with local students, grasp knowledge from local practices, and present their work in design charrettes and a public exhibition organized at centre of Ho Chi Minh City. Along with the trip component, five assignments took students to learn from this unfamiliar context in Southeast Asia and delve into its landscape structure at regional, district, and site scales from a multitemporal perspective. By focusing on the Saigon River system, students proposed strategic projects to reclaim and recompose fragmented landscape systems in this rapidly urbanizing metropolis. 106

MLA Option Studios

Public exhibition ‘Typologies to Overcome’, transect analysis by Yuwei ZHU, Vera

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MLA Option Studios

Ruiqi LI, Anny

Cho Yan LO, Minnie

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Everyday Landscapes of the (Disappearing) Rural Communities in Hong Kong ARCH7132 Landscape Design Studio 2 Instructor: Vincci MAK

Teaching Assistant: Yapeng LIU, Olly

In this studio, students examined the everyday landscapes of villages in the New Territories that may soon be affected by the Northern Metropolis development plan. They first conducted overall mapping to understand the history, background, and the context of the area. Students then visited the villages to identify, observe, and study the everyday landscapes of these communities as well as why they have strong cultural values and heritage importance in the region. Analyses were also made to understand the government’s proposal for the Northern Metropolis development plan. With these contextual understandings, students then developed landscape strategies and design proposals to sustain and conserve these everyday landscapes. 110

MLA Option Studios

Chun Yin CHAN, Aidan

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MLA Option Studios

Wing Tsun WONG, Jane

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POSTGRADUATE DIPLOMA IN LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE (PDLA)

Francisco CEVALLOS B. Lecturer, Programme Director (PDLA), Division of Landscape Architecture

The Postgraduate Diploma in Landscape Architecture (PDLA) is an intensive one-year curriculum that introduces foundational skills, theories, and concepts of landscape architecture to students without previous training in the environmental design fields. It creates new pathways for students with nontraditional academic backgrounds and experiences to enter the field, creating a multi-skilled cohort capable of bridging traditional disciplinary boundaries and expanding the profession from within. The PDLA curriculum is constructed around a broad approach to landscape architecture, structured around a sequence of studios that equip students with a set of critical methods for observing, analyzing, and reshaping the physical environment. These studios are designed in conjunction with lectures and seminars on history and theory, visual communication, and landscape technology that help to expand and contextualize design knowledge. The majority of students who have completed the PDLA have gone on to enroll in the Division’s own MLA program or in other overseas postgraduate landscape programs.

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Programme Structure

Year 1 Fall Semester

Spring Semester

Landscape Architecture Intensive

Studio 1

Studio 2

Landscape Media

Landscape Plants and Ecology 1

Landscape Technology 1

Landscape Technology 2

Landscape History and Theory 1

Landscape History and Theory 2

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Dynamics & Encounters Fieldwork as Placemaking

LAND7138 Foundation Design Studio 1

Instructor: William SHIVERS

Teaching Assistant: Mutsing LI

This design studio expands upon fundamental skills and build greater capacities in conceptual thinking, analysis and process, and practices of landscape architecture. The studio is deeply engaged in observation and inquiry, where each student explores the dynamism of landscapes and engages with sites of flux. These fundamentals are rooted in an exploration of reading and representing place, relation, material, time, and process. Sited in the village of Shap Long on Lantau Island, students carefully traced patterns, observed on-site conditions, and conceived of design ideas to create a series of interconnected rooms where visitors and residents alike could experience a landscape in change. 116

PDLA Foundation Studios

Dennis ISIP

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PDLA Foundation Studios

Xiaoya WANG, Jenny

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Urban Wild Urban Play

Transformations of the Urban Fabric of Hong Kong LAND7139 Foundation Design Studio 2

Instructor: Jutta KEHRER Teaching Assistant: Yapeng LIU, Olly

Hong Kong’s urban landscape was shaped by the transformation of mountainous terrain under pressures of urbanization, infrastructure, and resource extraction. Formed through continual processes of reclamation and development, the city could be read as a layered and contested palimpsest. This studio examined Quarry Hill in Kowloon as a case of geomorphological reconfiguration. Formerly a granite hill, it had been reshaped through cutting, filling, and terracing to support housing and infrastructure. Quarrying both supplied construction materials and produced developable land, leaving a fragmented terrain of engineered slopes, exposed rock, and residual vegetation. The site is situated within a broader network of marginal hillside landscapes, including cemeteries, informal settlements, and infrastructural installations, that occupied liminal urban conditions and blurred distinctions between natural and constructed systems. Through fieldwork, archival research, and design inquiry, the studio framed Quarry Hill as a socio-ecological assemblage shaped by extraction and incremental occupation. It asked how its layered histories might inform new forms of public landscape, and what constituted nature and leisure in the contemporary city. 120

PDLA Foundation Studios

Wing Ho LAU

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PDLA Foundation Studios

Runqi XIA, Athena

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Landscape Architecture Intensive ARCH7191 Landscape Architecture Intensive

Instructor: Vincci MAK

Teaching Assistant: Han BAN Jonson JIN

This three-week intensive course provided an introduction to the field of landscape architecture. Taking Hong Kong’s dense urban fabric as an experimental ground, this course allowed students to learn about Hong Kong’s landscapes. This course’s project also engaged students to immerse in a rigorous design process that went through abstract conceptualization, contextual understanding, and design application. In addition to this exploration of landscape architecture in the city, the course also covered the essential representation and mixed media skills required for this multidisciplinary subject. This introductory experience prepared students for further study in the dynamic field of landscape architecture, equipping them with a solid foundation in the principles and tools needed to communicate their ideas effectively. 124

PDLA Foundation Studios

Runqi XIA, Athena

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PDLA Foundation Studios

Dennis ISIP

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BACHELOR OF ARTS IN LANDSCAPE STUDIES BA(LS)

Ashley Scott KELLY Assistant Professor, Programme Director (BA(LS)), Division of Landscape Architecture

The BA(LS) offers a studio-based, interdisciplinary education connecting landscape architecture with ecology, geography, civil engineering, conservation, and planning. Students study the technical, cultural, and political dimensions of environmental change across development sectors and develop creative responses to urbanization, inequality, climate change, biodiversity loss, and rapid technological innovation. Students progress through six studios in collaborative research and design across scales, from urban parks to regional landscapes. Courses in plants and ecology, technology, environmental history, and visual communication integrate critical inquiry with technical skills, enhanced by electives across HKU. Fieldwork in Hong Kong and internationally, including 14 years for the BA(LS) at sites across mainland Southeast Asia, brings students into direct engagement with diverse peoples, environments, and development processes. Whether engaging with a corporate client, informing a public body, collaborating with communities, or joining an environmental non-profit, BA(LS) students develop the critical, creative, and technical capacity to advocate for just and sustainable change. Don’t do development as usual. Study landscape at HKU!

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Programme Structure Year 1

Year 2

Fall Semester

Spring Semester

Introduction to the Built Environment

Plants and Ecology in Hong Kong

Artificial Intelligence Literacy

Fall Semester

Spring Semester

Perception & Body

Public Space & Urban Systems

AI in the Built Environment

Studio 1

Studio 2

Introduction to Landscape Media 1

Introduction to Landscape Media 2

Contemporary Landscape Architecture

Cultural Landscapes and Environmental Ethics

Introduction to Landscape Theory

Chinese Language Course

English Language Course

Advanced Landscape Media

Common Core Course

Year 3

Year 4

Fall Semester

Spring Semester

Fall Semester

Spring Semester

Rural Systems

Large Parks & Infrastructure

Advanced or Options Studio

Regional Landscape Planning (Capstone)

Studio 3

Studio 4

Studio 5

Studio 6

Ecology and Environmental Management

Site Engineering

Advanced Topics in Ecology

Elective

Environmental Modelling and Analysis

Ecological Planning Theory

Elective

Common Core Course

Elective

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Thai-Myanmar Border Studio Landscape Planning across the DigitalEnvironment Nexus in Southeast Asia ARCH4202 Landscape Design Studio 6

Instructors: Ashley Scott KELLY Yuan ZHUANG Saw Yu Nwe, Sandra

The Thai-Myanmar Border Studio builds on over a decade of experiential learning by HKU Landscape undergraduates across mainland Southeast Asia. This year, students travelled more than 500 kilometers overland to meet with human rights and environmental organizations and document large-scale projects at sites planned for hydropower, interbasin water transfer, spoil disposal, flow-regulation check dams for reservoir construction, river dredging, access roads, and high-voltage transmission lines. Students also visited case study sites of urban reforestation in Bangkok, rural reforestation in one of Southeast Asia’s most extensive chronosequences of tropical forest plots near Chiang Mai, and a network of community fish conservation zones spanning three provinces. Drawing on critical development studies, environmental assessment, geospatial analysis, and field observation, students examined how technical expertise, indigenous and local knowledge, and competing value systems shaped regional landscapes. Juried by a panel of experts from planning, sociology, ecology, geography, and design, their individual landscape strategies deployed community mapping, villager research, and citizen science; addressed power and knowledge in scientific reforestation programs; and confronted infrastructure investment and contested value systems in dual-governed regions. 130

Thai-Myanmar Border Studio

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Thai-Myanmar Border Studio

Koon Kai HUI, Craig & Po Mun WONG, Polly

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Re-grounding Relics ARCH2113 Landscape Design Studio 1

Instructor: Francisco CEVALLOS B.

Teaching Assistant: Han BAN

This first studio course grounded the foundational theories and concepts of landscape architecture design by exploring the relationships between nature and the human scale. The assignments explored spatial composition and hierarchy in a former battlefield which is now part of protected area of Hong Kong. In this course, landscape design was understood as a process in which abstraction, speculation and creativity were articulated through the reflection on the ways to read and represent the specific conditions of a given site. Re-grounding relics took students to develop skills in observing, analyzing, interpreting, presenting and composing concise and logical arguments for site-scale landscape interventions responding to human proportion. The studio emphasized the use of conceptual, study and site physical models, along with analytical and technical drawings as instruments of the design development and as a way to consolidate a creative, clear, comprehensive and concise design argument. 134

BA(LS) Design Studios

Lok Yi LAU, Chloe Ching CHING Wai Yan HUNG, Sasa Ching PANG, PC

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BA(LS) Design Studios

Ching PANG, PC

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Stone & Sea

Lei Yue Mun Revitalization ARCH2202 Landscape Design Studio 2

Instructor: Meng Qi XU, Sonny

Teaching Assistant: Han BAN

This design studio invited second year BA(LS) students to engage with Lei Yue Mun, a historically layered, ecologically rich, and socially complex site located on the southeastern edge of Kowloon. Here, a defunct granite quarry meets a working fishing village; post-industrial terrain abuts informal urban settlements and sensitive coastal ecosystems. The studio is structured as a comprehensive design investigation, guiding students through a rigorous and immersive process to reimagine Lei Yue Mun’s fractured landscape as a resilient public realm that supports both ecological regeneration and community vitality. Students worked across multiple scales—from territorial frameworks to site-specific interventions—while learning to apply core landscape architecture competencies such as grading and drainage design, planting design, hardscape and detail development, and cut-and-fill analysis. 138

BA(LS) Design Studios

Lok Yi LAU, Chloe

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BA(LS) Design Studios

Ching PANG, PC Hau Yin TSE, Bobo Wai Yan HUNG, Sasa

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Interplay of the Ecological Rhythm at Tai Ho ARCH3203 Landscape Design Studio 3

Instructors: Sylvia NG Jiali LI

Teaching Assistant: Yapeng LIU, Olly

This course offered an exploration of the complex relationships between landscape systems and human settlement. It focused on understanding how geological, hydrological, climatic, and ecological systems, along with human interactions and cultural traditions, interact to shape our landscapes. As aspiring landscape designers and planners, students will learn to identify and understand these processes, forecast potential future impacts, and devise sustainable and resilient solutions. This studio is centred on Tai Ho, a rural area in northern Lantau Island comprising a large bay and mudflat, villages (Pak Mong, Ngau Kwu Long, Tai Ho San Tsuen) and their former agricultural lands, streams and Fung Shui Woodlands. The region has a complex history of conflict that began with the construction of the North Lantau Expressway built as part of the airport development in 1992. The highway project drastically altered the landscape and led to disputes between the villagers, developers, government agencies, and environmental groups. Within this complex scenario and working between the watershed and the coast, students identified and analyzed key aspects that shape the site context; constructed representations of the dynamic systems, allowing them to better understand the complexities of the site; and mapped spatial conflicts and consequences of competing land use goals. Ultimately, developed design propositions that draw from preceding analysis and projection, which give Tai Ho as a unique cultural and ecological destination. 142

BA(LS) Design Studios

Tsz Hei LIEM, Season Hiu Yan SHEK, Lila

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BA(LS) Design Studios

Chi Hong YAN, Hong Hiu Yan SHEK, Lila

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Junk Bay

Landscape Systems and Urban Infrastructures ARCH3204 Landscape Design Studio 4

Instructors: Susanne TRUMPF Ting LIANG

Teaching Assistant: Jonson JIN

The studio built upon current and planned infrastructures around Junk Bay. It critically examined the urban transformation of Tseung Kwan O from an industrial hub to a densely populated New Town by observing, drawing, and modeling existing conditions. It treated infrastructure and landscaping projects as existing assets and examined their impact on the urban landscape and environment. Students were encouraged to rethink landscape infrastructures and natural systems to envision new spatial and ecological symbioses for open spaces. Through three assignments, students developed cohesive landscape responses and designed a large urban park that creates accessible and resilient recreational spaces for Tseung Kwan O and beyond. 146

BA(LS) Design Studios

Tsz Hei LIEM, Season

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Hau Sik Monique CHING Wing Tung LAM, Venus

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Rural Futures ARCH4201 Landscape Design Studio 5

Instructor: Vincci MAK

Teaching Assistants: Jiani LIU, Vicki Linyu XIANG

This studio examined rural development at multi-scalar levels (site , town / village, regional) in order to identify future development and conservation strategies for the countryside. The selected site is the northeastern area of Hong Kong, where multiple villages situated in the Plover Cove Countryside Park are undergoing different levels of village revitalisation. The focus of this project is not only these villages, but also Sha Tau Kok which serves as a gateway to these villages. Under the HKSAR Government’s Northern Metropolis proposal, this northeastern area of Hong Kong will be designated to be the “Blue and Green Recreation, Tourism and Conservation Circle”. One of the key questions for this studio was to analyse and speculate how the urban development generated through the Northern Metropolis proposal in the northern part of Hong Kong may trigger pressure for the currently tranquil northeastern area. Besides, accessibility and the increasing people’s flow between Hong Kong and Shenzhen should also be studied to understand future development trend in the area as well as the demand for recreation provisions and regional travel opportunities. 150

BA(LS) Design Studios

Yu Yuen HUI, Alyssa

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Koon Kai HUI, Craig

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PLANTING + ECOLOGY

Our Planting and Ecology courses systematically integrate the scientific foundations of botany, soil, water, and climate with critical examinations of the sociocultural practices involved in the planning, construction, management, and conservation of natural and designed landscapes. In the coming decades, a major task for landscape architects will be to contribute to reversing biodiversity loss and restoring ecological health at multiple scales. Hong Kong, with its unique settlement patterns, environmental regulations, and history of environmental modification, serves as a significant testing ground for integrating urban and natural systems. Students in our landscape programmes benefit from field-based learning, through which they explore the territory’s vast country park system, visit worldclass ecological restoration projects, and observe experiments in urban green infrastructure. Planting and Ecology courses are closely linked with the

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design studios, encouraging students to synthesize their knowledge of plants and ecology in their site design and planning work. Similarly, studios that travel abroad to Thailand, Vietnam, or Singapore allow students to engage with the interrelated challenges of habitat loss and degradation arising from climate change and uncontrolled development that threaten Southeast Asia’s biodiversity hotspots.

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Plants and Ecology in Hong Kong LAND1501 Plants and Ecology in Hong Kong

Instructor: Gavin COATES

Teaching Assistant: Mutsing LI

This course equipped students with comprehensive knowledge of plant species and communities in Hong Kong and Southern China. They studied plant characteristics, botany, physiology, and taxonomy while learning planting design principles. Students explored how plant form and ecological habitats influence selection and arrangement, enhancing environmental experiences. Field trips to urban parks, Kadoorie Farm and Botanic Gardens, Lai Chi Wo, and Mui Wo on Lantau provided opportunities to analyze real planting designs, covering topics like plant propagation, horticultural care, and the functional applications of plants in historical and contemporary contexts. 156

Planting + Ecology

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Landscape Plants and Ecology 1 LAND7152 Landscape Plants and Ecology 1

Instructor: Gavin COATES

Teaching Assistant: Mutsing LI

Understanding horticulture is essential for landscape architects. This course equipped students with comprehensive knowledge of plant species and communities in Hong Kong and Southern China. They studied plant characteristics, botany, physiology, and taxonomy while learning planting design principles. Students explored how plant form and ecological habitats influence selection and arrangement, enhancing environmental experiences. Field trips to urban and rural landscapes provided opportunities to analyze real planting designs, covering topics like plant propagation, horticultural care, and the functional applications of plants in historical and contemporary contexts. 158

Planting + Ecology

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Nature-based Landscapes LAND7255 Landscape Plants & Ecology 2

Instructor: Mathew PRYOR

Teaching Assistant: Ban HAN

Ecological creation, restoration, enhancement are growing areas of landscape practice, encompassing both compensation for damage to existing ecological areas and a growing desire to increase the coherence, biodiversity and resilience of existing urban landscapes. This course explored ‘nature-based landscape’ practices, looking at: the natural ecology as the framework for landscape intervention; the development of managed landscapes that balanced functional ecological systems with human activities; notable ecological restoration projects in Hong Kong; and methods and approaches commonly adopted by multi-disciplinary teams and stakeholders within both terrestrial and wetland projects. 160

Planting + Ecology

Ningyi ZHAN & Chanwei YU, Safi

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TECHNOLOGY + PRACTICE

Our Technology and Practice courses address key technical and professional domains of expertise for landscape architects. This sequence of courses provides a practical foundation in both large- and small-scale site engineering and water management, with particular attention to regional construction and management standards, building codes, and environmental regulations. Students engage with concepts of resilience and sustainability from the perspectives of hydrology and material ecology to challenge “best practices” and imagine new relationships with water and innovative applications for natural and synthetic materials in the built environment. Students are also introduced to international precedents in climateadaptive infrastructure, nature-based solutions, and low-carbon construction, critically examining how technical standards and procurement frameworks shape questions of equity, risk, and environmental justice. This sequence culminates in a course devoted to bridging landscape education and the profession. It includes a detailed examination of international professional practice standards, Hong Kong’s local variations, and licensure requirements, as well as visits to construction sites and design offices across the city.

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Ecology and Sustainability ARCH3116 Landscape Technology 2

Instructor: Kevin GEOGHEGAN

Teaching Assistant: Jiani LIU, Vicki

This course facilitated students` understanding of ecology and biodiversity by demonstrating that integration of ecology in landscape design can improve the functionality, enjoyment and sustainability of human spaces. The course introduced topics related to and within the area of ecology including, evolution, biodiversity, animal and plant interactions, food web ecology, intertidal ecology, oceanography, and human impacts on ecosystems (climate change, pollution, invasive species). Case studies of designs that embrace ecological principals to encourage biodiversity, ecosystem services, climate change adaptation and sustainability were introduced and discussed throughout the course. The course was designed to introduce the fundamental principles of ecology and sustainability by means of lectures, workshops and assignments and reinforced with site visits illustrating the concepts discussed in class. Students will use the site visit experiences to understand the ecological issues affecting coastal cities, to analyse ecological aspects of the existing constructed landscapes and undertake an assessment of an existing landscape in terms of its ecological value and sustainability and include all of these aspects in a propsoed design to improve biodiversity and sistainabilit of a selected urban coastal public amenity 164

Technology + Practice

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Landscape Technology Human Dimensions

ARCH3102 Landscape Technology 3

Instructor: Jutta Kehrer

This course introduced students to the fundamental principles and technical components of landscape design. It establishes a foundation in spatial measurement, scale, proportion, and the dimensioning of landscape elements, as well as in technical documentation techniques through exercises, case studies, and on-site explorations. Landscape design encompasses both the human and the natural environment, each governed by its own set of principles, scales, and dimensions. The course therefore addressed both domains: the human and the natural environment. It examined how human scale and bodily experience influence and determine landscape design dimensions and proportions. Think, for example, of the length of a human step and what this implies when designing a flight of stairs. How do bodily proportions affect the design and dimensioning of elements for rest? How can we create comfort, encourage sitting, or invite lingering? At the same time, the course explored how landscape design can modify and intervene in natural conditions. Think of the flow of water and how its movement, direction, and speed can be altered, redirected, and shaped through earthworks, grading, and natural forms of landscape interventions. 166

Technology + Practice

Tsz Hei LIEM, Season

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Grading and Drainage LAND7151 Landscape Technology 1

Instructor: Gavin COATES

Teaching Assistant: Mutsing LI

Landscape architects shape both expansive landscapes and urban environments. Understanding the necessary tools and techniques is essential to achieve design goals effectively. This course provided students with a foundational knowledge for engineering sites and translating design objectives into built form. Lectures covered key topics, including topographical analysis and responsive site planning, landform design, structural elements like walls and steps, soils and earthwork, stormwater management, and site layout and road design. Students gained critical skills for successful landscape architecture practice. 168

Technology + Practice

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Landscape Technology Materials in Landscape Architecture ARCH7156 Landscape Technology 2

Instructor: Jutta KEHRER

Teaching Assistant: Jonson JIN This advanced MLA Technologies course builds up on the foundational knowledge from Landscape Technology I [Site Engineering] to delve deeper into key aspects of materiality, such as fabrication, assembly, performance, durability and detailing in landscape architecture. Materials are the vital elements that bring landscape projects to life. They shape and define the unique character and atmosphere of a place. They have the power to soften or harden the environment and user experience. They can both offer comfort and relaxation, as well as challenge and ambiguity. Materials in public space create the modest and often overlooked yet quintessential unity and backdrop to the city’s vibrant mosaic of colours and forms. Materials may blend in harmoniously or create striking contrasts. They can embrace and retrace the site’s past or cherish and invigorate its present or future. And at times, materials speak boldly on their own, making a statement beyond materiality itself. This course invites students to deeply investigate landscape materials by studying their origins, production processes, and core properties, as well as their primary applications and possible modifications. Through case studies and site visits, students will analyze the relationship between material selection and design intent, examine its impact on durability, and explore sustainable design practices. 170

Technology + Practice

O-Park, Shenzhen

Hoi Kiu NG

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Practicing Landscape ARCH7281 Landscape Professional Practice

Instructor: Mathew PRYOR

Teaching Assistant: Han BAN

Practicing Landscape offers a broad introduction to the principles, common concerns and requirements of professional landscape architectural practice. The course blends the practical considerations of landscape as a business with the technical requirements of professional licensure. Although framed around landscape practice within Hong Kong, the subject is relevant to professional practice anywhere in the world. Student groups visited local practices to interview recent graduates to understand their journey from classroom to design office, and to help them recognize and evaluate different forms of professional landscape architectural practice and the roles, responsibilities, ethical issues and liabilities in practicing as a landscape architect In preparation for future professional licensure, the course also introduced them to the laws and procedures governing the work of practising professional landscape architects and process applicable to common situations in practice. 172

Technology + Practice

Urban Arboriculture ARCH4702 & ARCH7306 Landcape Technology 4

Instructor: Ian ROBINSON

This course is designed to provide students with the essential background knowledge required to successfully manage trees in the urban landscape. After taking an initial overview of the physical and commercial contributions that trees make to the overall quality of life in the urban areas, we then look at Trees and the Law and the obligations faced by managers who are responsible for trees in facilities under their “duty of care”. Students will then be guided through the process of selecting various trees for different situations by reference to their physical characteristics and what constitutes a “good” tree by reference to its health, form and architecture. 173

REPRESENTATION + MEDIA

Our Representation and Media courses introduce students to the essential tools and techniques of design communication, ranging from hand drawing and physical modelling to advanced digital visualisation, film, and immersive media. Foundational courses explore the interrelationships between representation and design, particularly by positioning site observation, analysis, and abstraction as generative components in a rigorous, iterative design process. Students are encouraged to experiment with multiple modes of drawing, mapping, and image-making to construct spatial narratives and to critically reflect on how representational choices shape environmental understanding and decision-making. Advanced courses take advantage of HKU’s significant traditional shop and digital fabrication resources, exploring the computational possibilities in design and the intricacies of material detailing. These courses also introduce emerging methods in landscape representation, including data-driven visualisation, scenario building under climate uncertainty, and critical cartography that interrogates the politics of visibility, scale, and power in urban and territorial landscapes. Landscape architecture research and practice increasingly rely on robust site analysis and

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engagement with larger urban and territorial scales of investigation and intervention. Consequently, we train students to be proficient in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and to excel in geospatial analysis for the rational, ethical, and innovative use of data in shaping and preserving human and natural environments.

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Weathered Geology

Mapping, Translating and Morphing Hong Kong’s Landscape LAND1601 Introduction to Landscape Media 1

Instructor: Natasza MINASIEWICZ

Teaching Assistant: Jonson JIN

How can we represent the flow of time, matter and elements on a drawing? How to draw climate change? How to measure a tide without a measure? Can geology become a design strategy? These and more questions will lead us this semester as we attempt to represent the landscape with all its dynamism and complexities. ‘Introduction to Landscape Media 1’ is the first project-based seminar that unveils the relationship between landscape architecture and representation. The course narrated the translation of landscape through geology to explore diverse techniques, emphasizing how representation drives the design process. Throughout the semester, students engaged with theoretical perspectives on design and representation through lectures and assignments focused on the site as a critical concept. They explored different ways to understand landscape agents using both analog and digital methods, including hand drawing, physical modelling, material explorations, photography, Rhino and AutoCAD. 176

Representation + Media

Suet Yi CHEUNG, Katrina Hoi Wang LIN, Travis Narrelle Gweng-ting NG

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Hong Kong Landscapes Photography, Mixed Media, and Climate Futures

LAND1602 Introduction to Landscape Media 2

Instructor: Raffaella ENDRIZZI

Teaching Assistant: Han BAN

This course introduced photography as a primary medium for landscape inquiry, representation, and design thinking. Positioned as a freshman-level mini-studio within the Landscape Media sequence, the course treated the camera as both an analytical and conceptual tool through which landscapes are observed, interpreted, and constructed. Students learned to use photography not simply to document sites, but to actively read context, identify relationships, and frame environmental, spatial, social, and cultural conditions that inform design. Drawing on theoretical and visual precedents, the course framed photographic practice as a way of seeing, thinking, and producing knowledge. Photography is integrated with drawing, collageing, writing and time-based imagery to develop layered interpretations of landscape. Coursework is structured around short, focused investigations that function as mini design exercises, emphasizing fieldwork, visual notation, and iterative refinement. Students identify and develop critical categories of landscape elements and processes, constructing visual taxonomies that articulate context across scales and time. The course culminated in the production of a highly curated, small-format book publication that synthesizes photographic research and complementary media into a coherent body of work. 178

Representation + Media

Koo Ho LONG, Daniel Suet Yi CHEUNG, Katrina

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Forms and Methods ARCH2108 Landscape Representation 3

Instructor: Qijin HUANG, Hana

Teaching Assistant: Jonson JIN

Landscape Representation III investigated transformable landscapes—natural, infrastructural, or productive—as dynamic systems that contain layered data and extend beyond aesthetics. The course focused on how human activities, hazards, and environmental forces reshape landforms and behaviors over time. Through research in data visualization, form-finding, and digital modeling, students will develop an operational landscape system or generative landform. Ultimately producing a self-evolving, multiscalar landscape proposal that integrates design intervention with responsive systems. The course encouraged critical engagement with digital tools and systematic thinking, asking “why” and “how” to foster innovative landscape design. Students explored computational and parametric design methods alongside digital fabrication to experiment with scalable design interventions, from prototypes (1:10) to territorial proposals (1:500). This process emphasized morphological logic, site evaluation, fabrication constraints, aiming to address territorial, environmental, and socio-economic challenges. Key topics included ground morphology, transformable landscapes, systematic design, and parametric prototype proliferation. 180

Representation + Media

Ching PANG, PC

181

Systems and Simulations ARCH3115 Landscape Representation 4

Instructor: Ashley Scott KELLY

Teaching Assistant: Yapeng LIU, Olly

Landscape architects inherit tools and conventions from architecture and planning, even though landscapes present distinctive forms, material conditions, and ecological processes. Systems and Simulations offered a landscape-centric approach to digital representation, treating software as a medium for creating and manipulating spatial knowledge across regional and site scales. Lectures traced terrain and surface technologies from early geographic information systems (GIS) in the 1960s through highresolution sensing and machine learning, while addressing their ethical dimensions, including data bias, competing value systems, algorithmic transparency, real-time monitoring and regulation, and problems with regimes of open data and citizen science. Students developed workflows in GIS, computational logic, remote sensing, ecological modelling, and terrain manipulation. Their term projects examined current landscape ecology research in Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area, exploring the geostatistical sciences of spatial ecology and ecosystem services modelling that enable today’s predictions of environmental change across Greater China, while considering landscape architecture’s distinctive capacity to mediate among environmental science, planning, and design. 182

Representation + Media

Ching Lam SO, Rainbow Tsz Hei HO Sze Yui WONG, Momo

183

Physical and Phenomenal ARCH7181 Landscape Media 1

Instructor: Meng Qi XU, Sonny

Teaching Assistant: Mutsing LI

This course examined the fundamental questions that shape the practice of landscape drawing: What is the nature of space and time within the landscape? How can we perceive and represent elements in constant flux? Students will engage with the interplay of ground, topography, atmosphere, water, light, shadow, vegetation, structure, form, material, and texture, exploring how drawing can both reveal and transform the relationships among these elements. The course introduced key media of landscape representation and developed skills in documentation, fabrication, and spatial exploration. Students worked across both drawing and physical modelling. As Günther Vogt observes, “If there is no such thing as nature as a whole – perhaps there is landscape as a cabinet of curiosities... this lack of wholeness seems to be a gain rather than a loss. What is required… is an attentive observer who collects the various phenomena as individual elements, relates them to each other, and rearranges them.” In this spirit, drawing is approached as a process that allows students to experience, express, speculate, and construct within physical space. 184

Representation + Media

Wang CHEUNG, Warren Man To KWOK

185

Landscape Media 2 ARCH7182 Landscape Media 2

Instructor: Qijin HUANG, Hana

Teaching Assistant: Jonson JIN

Landscape Media II investigated transformable landscapes— natural, infrastructural, or productive—as dynamic systems that contain layered data and extend beyond aesthetics. The course focused on how human activities, hazards, and environmental forces reshape landforms and behaviors over time. Through research in data visualization, form-finding, and digital modeling, students developed an operational landscape system or generative landform. Ultimately producing a self-evolving, multi-scalar landscape proposal that integrates design intervention with responsive systems. The course encouraged critical engagement with digital tools and systematic thinking, asking “why” and “how” to foster innovative landscape design. Students explored computational and parametric design methods alongside digital fabrication to experiment with scalable design interventions, from prototypes (1:10) to territorial proposals (1:500). This process emphasized morphological logic, site evaluation, fabrication constraints, aiming to address territorial, environmental, and socio-economic challenges. Key topics include ground morphology, transformable landscapes, systematic design, and parametric prototype proliferation. 186

Representation + Media

Jiahui WANG, Ada Man To KWOK

187

HISTORY + THEORY

Our History and Theory courses examine landscape architecture and environmental planning through an in-depth study of key projects, practices, and texts that are broadly relevant to our evolving discipline. These courses include a review of design histories with particular attention to the environmental, economic, technological, and social dimensions that shape landscape practices across diverse regions and periods. Lessons explore canonical case studies as well as counter-narratives in environmental design and management that challenge the inequalities and socio-spatial hierarchies complicating our field of practice. Ultimately, this thematic track aims to promote critical and reflexive perspectives on contemporary landscape practice among our graduates.

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Introduction to Landscape Theory LAND1301 Introduction to Landscape Theory

Instructor: Yilun CHAN

What is landscape? How might it be interpreted, engaged, represented, described, classified, and shaped? This course explored landscape architecture as a profession, and landscape acting as a discipline, a medium, and an idea. As an introduction to the topic, students have challenged to think critically about landscape in ways that shape an expanded understanding for the relationship between individuals and environment. This expanded understanding has been developed through the actions of looking, interpreting, reading, discussing, and ultimately representing landscape. Each of these activities helped reveal the layered conditions, relationships, and processes embedded in any landscape. 190

History + Theory

Theories and Practices of Contemporary Landscape Architecture ARCH2106 & ARCH7141 Landscape History and Theory 1 Instructors: Francisco CEVALLOS B. Jiali LI

Teaching Assistants: Han BAN Jiani LIU, Vicki

The discipline of landscape architecture has been transformed over the past few decades with the advent of new sets of theories and agendas formulated by landscape theorists and practitioners. Various discourses have set out to reconceptualize the roles of landscape architecture and its field of operations. At the same time, a related set of intellectual currents and historical events have arisen to challenge our pre-established ideas of ‘landscape,’ ‘nature,’ ‘culture,’ and ‘environment.’ Such paradigm shifts have led to the emergence of novel design and planning methodologies and subsequent spatial outcomes, which acknowledge and respond to changing ecological, economic, and social conditions. This course sought to understand these contemporary positions by examining their developments from the early 18th to the late 20th centuries from theoretical discourse to design principle. It posits that history, theory and practice are contingent upon one another and, together, they ground design in the particularities of time and place (Meyer, 1992). 191

Environment, Community & Design ARCH2203 & ARCH7159 History and Theory 3 Instructor: Vincci MAK

Teaching Assistants: Jonson JIN

This course provided an introduction to the intertwining concepts of environment, community and design and explored the contexts that shape their relationships in diverse localities. It also introduced students to different perspectives and analytical methods (written and graphical) of studying the built environment and communities. Weekly seminar topics were structured to provide a systematic introduction to key ideas of the social roles and ethics of design practice, and explore the nature of emergent “design activism” in recent years. Readings were paired with lectures to provide theoretical understandings on the concepts discussed. Case studies were conducted to help students explore how practices/organisations implement these foundational ideologies. To bridge between the concepts and theories learnt in classroom to reality, fieldtrips were incorporated to provide a channel for students to experiment, experience, and reflect their knowledge gained in lectures, readings, and case studies. Ultimately, this course aimed to help students to develop a critical understanding of the complex forces that shape the built environment in the past and present and reflect on the multi-faceted challenges facing design practitioners in the 21st century. 192

History + Theory

193

Shock Treatment

Utopia, Calamity, and Identity in the Phytopolis ARCH3205 & LAND7142 Strategic Landscape Planning

Instructor: William SHIVERS Teaching Assistants: Han BAN Chandima SILVA

This course equiped students with a critical examination of the relationship between nature, city, and nation framed from 1945 to today with a particular focus on the cyclical process of planning and remaking the city. Geographically framed around Southeast Asia with extensions into developing economies, the course challenges students to evaluate, analyze, and theorize the roles and pressures on nature/city/nation in a human-dominant world through critical reading, case study presentations, and multimedia reflections. The course presented history as a current phenonema which they play a part of and whose work will do the same. Through learning 20th and 21st century issues in city and nation-making and the roles landscape architecture can play, students leverage history to impact their own point of view. 194

History + Theory

Jiqing LI, Wanting XU, Yuwei ZHU & Rong ZHONG

195

History of Landscape Architecture LAND7148 Histories of Landscape

Instructor: Jutta KEHRER

Why look into history? Cause history is engraved in the present. Today’s ideals and actions will become tomorrow’s past. The history of garden design reveals a persistent and intricate relationship between modes of artistic expression and the social values through which they are produced and received. Gardens have functioned as living works of art, giving tangible form to the cultural ideals, social structures, and philosophical world views characteristic of their respective time Historic gardens not merely served aesthetic or utilitarian purposes but have symbolized power, spirituality, harmony, and identity, reflecting prevailing artistic trends such as Renaissance symmetry, Baroque theatricality, and Romantic naturalism. At the same time, the evolution of garden design demonstrates how garden art has engaged with social hierarchies, cultural memories, and political ideologies. Gardens have always embodied societal aspirations and beliefs-from the shielded royal gardens functioning as status symbols and entertainment spaces of the royal court, to people’s parks as places of education and recreation for the working class, to the public parks we know today that foster ecological awareness and community engagement. Historic gardens, and even more so their contemporary counterparts, are microcosms of society’s strengths, conflicts, and environmental concerns. It is inherent in garden design to challenge the boundaries between nature and culture while inviting reflection and participation. This course invites the students to look at the past to make an informed design statement for today as a stepping stone toward the future. 196

History + Theory

Siu Ting YUNG

197

Thesis Preparation

ARCH7291 Thesis Prep

Instructor: Ivan VALIN

Teaching Assistant: Mutsing LI This course introduced students to the components and parameters of a master’s thesis in landscape architecture and guided candidates through the process of developing their own thesis proposal. Through lectures, guest talks, case studies, workshops, student presentations and pinups, the course explored the components of a cogent thesis proposal. Course assignments are designed to define and refine the scope of their thesis ideas, frame relevant research questions and arguments, and become familiar with the types and usage of reference materials for their projects. Assessment exercises in the course are set frequently, and students are expected to work continuously and iteratively to achieve a final set of useful materials to launch the Landscape Thesis in the spring term. The course is broadly divided into two parts, FRAMES and MODES, concepts that organize the sequence of topics and exercises explored. Broadly, the FRAMES sessions contextualize the design thesis process and and orient students to the idea of design research approach. Here, students learn to define their research interests in designerly ways, position their interests relative to theoretical debates, threads, and key projects in L.A., and to use the construction of the site and territory as a driver of design enquiry. The MODES sessions go deeper into the tools, practices, and strategies for operationalizing the thesis question. Here, students examined a range of design research methods, examined methods to work with and for actors and agents, and developed generative media and communication plans. 198

History + Theory

Philip King Hei WONG

199

MASTER OF SCIENCE IN CONSERVATION MSC(CONSERVATION) Linda SHETABI Senior Lecturer, Programme Director (MSc(Conservation))

The Master of Science in Conservation is designed to empower our graduates with the technical competencies and intellectual skills required to guide decision-making in conservation planning, management, and design in the 21st century. Through its unique and innovative interdisciplinary approach, the program leverages the Faculty of Architecture’s internationally recognized expertise in planning, architecture, landscape architecture, and building construction, along with their established professional connections, to develop a deeper understanding of heritage within the framework of sustainability. This is achieved by embracing a comprehensive approach that combines cross disciplinary digital and analogue tools, with seminars, lectures, hands-on training workshops, and tailored local and international fieldtrips. Demonstrating the inseparable link between natural and cultural heritage, the programme nurtures future conservation professionals who advocate approaches that respect cultural rights, promote inclusive economic growth, enhance climate resilience, and support sustainable development in harmony with people, diverse landscapes, and ecosystems. This year, with the support of ICOMOS Korea, the Seoul Metropolitan Government’s Cultural Heritage Utilization Division, the World Heritage Nomination Office of the Capital Fortifications of Hanyang, Korea, and the ICOMOS SDG Working Group, our students had

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Programme Structure

a unique opportunity to speak with international experts and gain exclusive behind-the-scenes access to the technical and operational mechanisms that support the management of World Heritage Sites in modern, thriving cities. Our program is supported by the Built Heritage Research Collaborative (BHRC), a research laboratory within HKUrban Labs that facilitates knowledge exchange and collaborative projects among heritage researchers across HKU and with academic and professional partners. 1 Year for full-time mode 2 Years for part-time mode Fall Semester

Spring Semester

Summer Semester

Charters and Legislation of Conservation

Critical Issues in Heritage Conservation

Methods of Heritage Research and Interpretation *

Stream 1

Stream 2

Conservation Planning and Management Studio *

Design For Conservation Studio *

Conservation and Assessment Techniques*

Heritage Economics and Sustainable Development*

Materials and Technologies in Conservation*

Elective

Built Heritage and Its Significance

* Courses offered to part-time students in Year 2 For more details, please visit the program website

Conservation Thesis (Capstone Experience)*

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202

Master of Science in Conservation

203

204

Master of Science in Conservation

205

Industrial Heritage as Commons

Reinterpreting Kowloon Flour Mills through Stakeholder Perspectives and Virtual Museum Design Conservation Thesis Student: Li Sik LAM, Nicole Advisor: Linda SHETABI

This thesis examines Kowloon Flour Mills, Hong Kong’s only remaining operational flour mill, as a case of living industrial heritage situated within a capitalist urban and heritage regime. It asks how the mill’s heritage values can be identified and interpreted when the site is privately owned, prohibited to access, and under represented in official conservation discourse that privileges monuments, temples and adaptively reused sites. Using the concept of heritage as commons, the study treats the mill not only as physical fabric but as a shared resource whose meanings and benefits potentially extend beyond legal ownership. A mixed qualitative methodology—integrating literature and archival research, semi-structured interviews with cultural practitioners and a public survey—investigates how architecture, machinery, production workflow, labour, logistics and food supply chains together shape the site’s heritage value. The research finds that Kowloon Flour Mills functions as an integrated industrial system whose significance lies in ongoing production resilience, technical adaptation and embodied expertise, yet public understanding of its history and role in Hong Kong’s food economy remains shallow and fragmented, revealing a gap between recognition and interpretation rather than a lack of value. 206

Master of Science in Conservation

207

Preserving or Producing? Ongoing Heritagisation and the Creation of Public Memory A Case Study of a Colonial Administrative Building in Cần Thơ, Vietnam Conservation Thesis Student: Shota KAMIJI Advisor: Bernard BRENNAN

“What is that deteriorated old building?” This simple question initiated a study of the two-storey building at 61 Phan Đình Phùng in central Cần Thơ, a major city of Vietnam’s Mekong Delta. I initially hypothesised that its colonial origin and complex history would make its recognition as heritage difficult. However, fieldwork led me to see a more complex process through which this old building was being prepared for official recognition as heritage. This study examines the building through three lenses: palimpsest and building biography; heritagisation and authorised heritage discourse; and communicative and cultural memory. First, it reconstructs the building’s biography through newspapers, maps, local histories, administrative records, and physical observation. Second, by asking local residents what they call the building, what they remember, and whether it should be preserved, the study examines how it is understood around the site today. Third, it examines the heritagisation process through interviews with public officials and experts, alongside recent institutional materials. The study reveals that the building’s shifting uses and meanings have enabled its recent heritagisation through the 26 August 1945 narrative, transforming it into a potential lieu de mémoire despite the absence of a shared local historical interpretation. 208

Master of Science in Conservation

209

From Kiln to Heritage

The Heritage-making of Castle Peak Dragon Kiln in Hong Kong

Conservation Thesis Student: Xinru WANG Advisor: Changxue SHU The Castle Peak Dragon Kiln in Tuen Mun is one of Hong Kong’s few surviving traditional ceramic kilns. Formerly graded as a Grade III Historic Building in 2014, its heritage significance was gradually shaped through changing historical conditions, conservation practices and public engagement. This research examines how the kiln was transformed from a production facility within the midtwentieth-century ceramic and building-material environment of Castle Peak into a recognised heritage site. Using archival materials, historical maps, official heritage documents and public records, the study analyses the kiln’s production context, heritage-making process and changing meanings. It argues that the kiln should be understood as part of a wider production environment shaped by transport, resources, market demand, nearby industries and craft knowledge. A comparison of maps from 1957 and 1984 shows the decline of this environment and the kiln’s emergence as one of its remaining physical traces. Its heritage identity was gradually constructed through professional recognition, documentation, museum planning, formal grading, heritage impact assessment and public advocacy. This process preserved the kiln structure, family history and craftsmanship, while giving less attention to wider industrial relationships and labour experiences. The study therefore shifts attention from a single structure to the relationship between production environment, heritage-making and public interpretation. It also proposes a Living Museum approach to reconnect the site with its historical context, diverse communities and collective memory. 210

Master of Science in Conservation

211

A Study on the Synergistic Enhancement of Heritage Conservation and Residents’ Quality of Life in the Fengguo Temple Historic District, Yixian, Liaoning Province Conservation Thesis Student: Mingshu YU, Lilian Advisor: Montira Horayangura UNAKUL

This study addresses a common problem facing numerous historic districts in underdeveloped counties across China: how to protect cultural heritage of outstanding universal value while simultaneously improving the quality of life for local residents, and achieve synergistic development between the two. Taking the Fengguo Temple Historic District as its subject, the district possesses exceptional architectural and artistic value. However, as a heritage site located in an underdeveloped county, it has long suffered from many problems, exhibiting a typical condition of “high heritage value, weak protection, and low income.” Through a literature review, this study first constructs an assessment framework covering three dimensions: heritage conditions, residents’ quality of life, and conservation and development strategies. On this basis, it conducts a comparative analysis of three cases to distill their respective experiences. Combined with field investigation, the study then carries out a systematic analysis of the Fengguo Temple Historic District. The findings reveal that the district’s predicament is not an isolated phenomenon, but rather the result of strategic deficiencies at three dimensions—economic, institutional, and social-cultural. The common lesson from analysis is that the benefits of heritage conservation do not automatically trickle down to residents’ lives; targeted strategic design is essential to establish an effective connection between the two. 212

Master of Science in Conservation

213

Conservation Design Studio/ Conservation Planning and Management Studio CONS8220/CONS8221

Instructors: Montira Horayangura UNAKUL Bernard BRENNAN

Teaching Assistant: Limiao HUANG

Guided by a value-based approach to conservation, students from both specialisation streams work together on developing ecologically and culturally sensitive interventions and conservation processes on select sites in Hong Kong. The final output is a Conservation Management Plan for each of the selected heritage sites that integrates both management and design proposals. This approach broadens the understanding of historic places from buildings to places that embody multilayered and dynamic systems of tangible and intangible resources, intertwined with historic, socioeconomic, and environmental networks. The studios are taught jointly to foster collaborative practices, with management and conservation design students working together to identify heritage significance, deterioration patterns, and environmental and social concerns to develop a shared vision. This year, the studio focused on both urban sites in Sham Shui Po and rural sites in San Tin. The management students focused on developing policies, visitor management, impact assessments, and resilience strategies, while conservation design students proposed tangible interventions that aligned with the shared vision. 214

Master of Science in Conservation

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Master of Science in Conservation

Shi Yun BU, Sik Lam LI & Yanheng XU

217

Built Heritage and its Significance

CONS8120 Instructor: Montira Horayangura UNAKUL

Teaching Assistant: Limiao HUANG

This course provides a comprehensive introduction to the theories and practices of heritage conservation and management. Key topics covered throughout the course include the emergence and evolution of the conservation movement in global and local contexts, emphasizing values-based approaches that connect people, nature, and culture. Students learned to identify and articulate values, preparing a Statement of Significance as a foundation for developing conservation management plans. Through case studies focused on Hong Kong and East Asia, they explored various heritage types and critically reflected on how heritage values are constructed and protected. 218

Master of Science in Conservation

219

Methods of Heritage Research and Interpretation CONS8117 Instructor: Changxue SHU

Teaching Assistants: Alys LIANG Zhou YOU

This first-semester course is designed to guide students through the process of developing a thesis proposal by employing established heritage theories and interpreting archival and site based material through rigorous research methodologies and techniques. Focusing on fieldwork methods, students enhanced their skills in research source information and data collection, curation, interpretation and analysis, while exploring alternative perspectives on historic sites, their values, and their contribution to the global discourse on heritage. Other research methods will be extended through the second-semester course CONS8216 Critical Issues in Heritage Conservation. 220

Master of Science in Conservation

221

Conservation and Assessment Techniques CONS8124 Instructors: Stenven Ray PHILLIPS Jack Shing Kit CHUI Teaching Assistant: Alys LIANG

This course began by establishing a foundational understanding of building types, traditional construction materials, and regional construction techniques specific to Hong Kong and its surrounding areas. This pedagogical approach emphasized contextual learning, enabling students to appreciate the diversity and complexity of local architectural heritage. Building on this foundation, students took part in tailored field trips designed to demonstrate core principles of material science and construction techniques. These immersive experiences facilitated hands-on learning, allowing students to observe and analyse construction methods and material properties directly within historic sites. Complementing fieldwork, the curriculum incorporated lectures and seminars focused on documentation and assessment methodologies. Through these sessions, students developed critical skills in recording building conditions and evaluating the integrity of heritage assets. Finally, students had the opportunity to demonstrate their competency through practical site visits, where they documented the condition of historic buildings, identified defects, and assessed risks that might threaten heritage significance. These exercises cultivated essential skills in conservation diagnosis, informing effective design and management strategies for heritage preservation. 222

Master of Science in Conservation

223

Critical Issues in Heritage Conservation CONS8216 Instructor: Changxue SHU

Teaching Assistant: Xinwen HU

This course throws fresh light on the conventional wisdom and long-standing issues of conservation. Students obtained visionary perspectives on the following field-defining questions: Would the 19th-20th century frameworks of conservation be endangered in the new dynamics of sustainability and digital technology? How to enrich our appreciation of historical built environment? What roles could conservation play? Through a teaching-learning-research combined pedagogy students developed the necessary research skills required to interconnect value assessment and material vulnerability and become more critical of research sources and tools. Throughout the course, carefully tailored field trips provided valuable opportunities to investigate material deterioration, modern interventions and the impacts of climatic conditions on historic fabric, and test conservation theories in addressing these issues. 224

Master of Science in Conservation

225

Materials and Technologies in Conservation CONS8223 Instructors: Stenven Ray PHILLIPS Jack Shing Kit CHUI

Teaching Assistant: Limiao HUANG

This is a specialised course for students enrolled in the Design for Conservation stream, and elective course for the students in Management Stream. Students began with more advanced technical lectures on material science and repair methodology for sustainable conservation techniques. This was complemented by carefully planned field trips and tailored technical conservation skills workshops, that provide hands-on training in real-world contexts. Each student was required to exercise these skills in the development of technical building assessments, analysing materials, and applying conservation methods for their chosen site, culminating in the production of conservation packages, using systematic procedures on actual projects. The students demonstrated their integrated knowledge and technical skills through assessments and presentations, highlighting their ability to apply theory to practice. 226

Master of Science in Conservation

227

Charters and Legislation in Conservation CONS8103 Instructor: Linda SHETABI

Teaching Assistants: Limiao HUANG Alys LIANG By examining international and national heritage conservation principles, sustainable development policies, and legal frameworks, students investigated Hong Kong’s historic urban landscape to understand how doctrines, charters, and legislation influence heritage site conservation and impact sustainable development activities. Building on this foundation, they explored how governments in the Asia Pacific region and beyond address urban development pressures through case studies, gaining familiarity with a wide range of policy frameworks, legal provisions, and international instruments used elsewhere. This enabled them to assess their broader applicability within the Asian context and the complexity of localisng international policies. Students selected heritage assets within Hong Kong, analysed their significance, and mapped their contributions to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, discovering the multiple ways heritage supports sustainability and the UNSDGs beyond SDG 11.4. They critiqued existing strategies and proposed alternative approaches for heritage conservation in line with sustainable development goals. Additionally, they evaluated how conservation projects relate to local contexts, demographics, and address accessibility, within the constructs of current legislation. This process fostered critical reflection on conservation practices, emphasized effective stakeholder communication, and highlighted the vital role of policies in sustainable heritage preservation. Guided by these principles, students developed conservation policies aligned with professional standards and guidelines, and highlighted areas where policies were inadequate in protecting the full range of heritage values. 228

Master of Science in Conservation

Heritage Economics & Suistainable Development CONS8222 Instructors: John PENDLEBURY Kiki KO

Teaching Assistant: Limiao HUANG

Heritage is increasingly recognized as an essential resource for economic development. This course introduces foundational economic and social theories relevant to heritage and heritage conservation, cultural and social capital, and the governance of common-pool resources. In lectures and seminars, we explored the relationship between heritage and sustainable development to understand how conservation processes can serve as effective drivers and enablers of a more just and sustainable future. By examining case studies from Hong Kong and around the world, we investigated how heritage sites contribute towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) while ensuring financial sustainability and long-term resilience. International experts were invited to share their experiences and provide real-world examples of the challenges and opportunities involved in securing funding for conservation activities and maintaining financial viability. 229

MASTER OF SCIENCE IN SUSTAINABLE ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN MSC(SED) Bin CHEN Associate Professor, Programme Director (MSc(SED))

Chao REN Professor, Deputy Program Director

Globally increasing environmental awareness and concern, fast urbanization, and technological development have together resulted in an urgent need and opportunity to rethink how we could design, construct and manage our cities in a more efficient, effective and low-cost way. The Master of Science (MSc) Programme in Sustainable Environmental Design has been offered since Fall 2022. Students enrolled in our taught- postgraduate degrees receive training in scientific research and technique skills and conduct independent research under the guidance of a team of renowned advisors. Candidates are expected to have an educational background in built environment disciplines (architecture, civil engineering, building science and technology, landscape architecture, urban studies, etc.) and/or fields such as environmental science, mathematics, computer science, business, management, and social sciences. Our MScSED program has been designed with a view to combining specialist study and broad-based training in professional reflection, assessment, and research methods taught by world-class scholars and well-known professionals. 230

Programme Structure

Year 1 Fall Semester

Spring Semester

SEED6104 Dissertation Part 1 (Capstone Experience)

SEED6204 Dissertation Part 2 (Capstone Experience)

SEED6101 Bioclimatic Building Design

SEED6102 Innovation and Smart Technology for Sustainable Development

SEED6103 Environmental Sound Simulation and Performance Assessment Tools

SEED6201 Green Building Assessment and Climate Responsive Design

SEED6303 (Elective) Environmmental Policy and Management for Megacities

SEED6202 City Risk and Resilience: Emerging Planning Theories and Practices

SEED6306 (Elective) Topical Study II in Sustainable Design and Urban Development

SEED6203 Designing for a Changing Climate

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232

Master of Science in Sustainable Environmental Design

233

234

Master of Science in Sustainable Environmental Design

235

Dissertation SEED6104/ SEED6204 Dissertation Part I & II

Instructors: Chao REN Bin CHEN Siqi JIA Shengbiao WU Teaching Assistants: Xidong CHEN DI WEI Yadian WANG Wangyizhang ZHOU

Dissertation is a student-led research project. Throughout the dissertation preparation process, students worked closely with their advisors, participate in regular progress reviews, and demonstrate self-directed independent work on the articulation, development and completion of a research project and their dissertation writing. Students coordinated with their advisors to schedule individual meetings and are expected to manage their work progress in order to reach the required deadlines with satisfactory development. Students were also encouraged to seek feedback from other people (other staff within the Faculty, specialists within other Departments, outside professionals, and, of course, your peers) when appropriate, and to encourage these secondary relationships early. 236

Master of Science in Sustainable Environmental Design

Yaxuan JIN

237

Bioclimatic Building Design SEED6101

Instructors: Zhiwen LUO Leung M.K.

Teaching Assistants: Yufei HUANG Renfeng WANG Junyi ZHANG Wangyizhang ZHOU

This course introduced the principles of bioclimatic building design and its wider site and urban contexts, so as to maximize human health benefit including thermal comfort and productivity, and minimize the energy needs for heating and cooling of the buildings. The effect of various architectural decisions on the indoor climate and energy expenditure is discussed in details. These quantitative interactions between the effects of the various design details were discussed in details in the class. 238

Master of Science in Sustainable Environmental Design

Youkang HOU

239

Innovation and Smart Technology for Sustainable Development SEED6102 Instructor: Bin CHEN

Teaching Assistants: Ziming LI Han WANG Yufei HUANG Yadian WANG Wangyizhang ZHOU

Our living planet is changing with a lot of pressing environmental challenges. It will directly and indirectly lead to impacts on the function of nature and the health of humans. There is a high need to understand environmental changes in the context of multi-scale spaces and times. Geospatial data, such as remote sensing, social sensing, and crowdsourcing datasets, provide new and unique insights to advance our scientific understanding of environmental changes and the interaction between human and environment. The main objective of this course was to empower our studies with basic. 240

Master of Science in Sustainable Environmental Design

Yijian FU, Leheng CHEN, Lang LIN & Huilin LI

241

Environmental Sound Simulation and Performance Assessment Tools SEED6103 Instructors: Kin Che LAM Andy CHUNG

Teaching Assistant: Wangyizhang ZHOU

This course focused on the simulation and modelling of environmental sound in the urban context. The module began with the basics of sound and noise, their sources and propagation in urban open space and how they affect the quality of living in cities. The course then introduced the approach and techniques of the modelling of sound propagation in the urban setting, using stateof-art GISbased noise models. Students were asked to undertake traffic noise modelling for an urban neighborhood and suggest ways to improve the acoustical environment. 242

Master of Science in Sustainable Environmental Design

Meixin CHEN, Xiaoman CHEN, Jingyi FAN, Huilin LI & Ruining TIAN

243

City Risk and Resilience

Emerging Planning Theories and Practices

SEED6202 Instructor: Yin LONG

Teaching Assistants: Tianyao SHEN Fanrong CHEN Lingkang XU Wangyizhang ZHOU

This course provided a structured and progressive exploration of how smart city technologies and GIS-based spatial analysis can inform urban planning, infrastructure development, and climate adaptation strategies. Beginning with foundational concepts, the course introduced students to GIS and its applications in urban systems, with a particular focus on Japan’s urban development and human geography. To bridge theory with practice, students first engaged in a small-scale, campus-centered data collection and analysis exercise, treating the university campus as a micro-laboratory for urban studies. Through a combination of lectures and hands-on GIS workshops, they developed essential spatial analysis skills, including POI data collection, urban accessibility mapping, and simple resilience assessment. Students participated in immersive site visits, beginning with sustainability initiatives at the University of Tokyo’s Kashiwa Campus. These visits provided insight into smart energy management, green infrastructure, and mixed-use urban development as models for resilient cities. 244

Master of Science in Sustainable Environmental Design

Wei AI, Meixin CHEN, Xiaoman CHEN, Wenxi JIN & Huilin LI

245

Designing for a Changing Climate SEED6203 Instructor: Siqi JIA

Teaching Assistants: Renfeng WANG Wangyizhang ZHOU

The aims of this module are: (i) to provide an introduction to the physical basis of climate change and urban climate. (ii) to discuss how a changing climate might impact upon the built and natural environment at the macro, meso, and micro scales. (iii) to consider what climate-responsive design strategies and actions can be taken to reduce this impact. (iv) to develop an understanding of how climate-resilient builtenvironment and landscapes can be designed. Then, students can use the learnt knowledge and skills to adopt appropriate methods and develop their own design strategies for creating better living environments under changing climate. The course demonstrated and explained theories, scientific evidence, and design cases on different types of urban climate and climate-responsive design. Each class included a short presentation (given by students) on their individual study & discussion time, and a formal lecture. An intense workshop on microclimate modelling for design is also build in. 246

Master of Science in Sustainable Environmental Design

Green Building Assessment and Climate Responsive Design SEED6201 Instructors: Benny AU Chi Feng LUNG

Teaching Assistant: Wangyizhang ZHOU

This course first introduced the background and development of green and sustainable development. It then examined the environmental impact of building activities on the eco-system through a number of more established environmental concepts (for example, embodies energy, carbon dioxide emission, energy life cycle assessment, environmental impact assessment). Tools and methods for assessing building’s environmental impact were critically evaluated and applied through case studies. 247

ELECTIVES + INTERDISCIPLINARY COURSES

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Productive Landscapes Ecological Prototypes for Kai Tak ARCH7351 Advanced Topics in Technology

Instructor: Meng Qi XU, Sonny

This advanced design-build elective investigated the Kai Tak Port Terminal Temporary Housing, a site used for quarantine during the recent pandemic is currently being repurposed as university dormitories. This class served as a design + fabrication-based laboratory for testing how productive landscape systems can be integrated into the new dormitory typologies at the Kai Tak terminal in Hong Kong. Learning from international and local precedents of ecological prototypes, we dissected the precedents and compile the research. We then carefully examined the site and designed site-specific hybridized infrastructures that integrate food production, biodiversity support, natural resources collection, and community resilience into dense urban housing. As these temporary housing transition into dormitories, the course asked: how can the landscape become productive—ecologically, socially, and materially? Students designed, iterated, fabricated, and tested portions of the 1:1 scale productive landscape prototypes that integrate with existing architectural structures and respond to urban ecologies of Kai Tak and cultural productive landscape practices of Hong Kong. The new systems responded to and tied them into existing ecologies, bringing nature (plants, animals and pollinators, etc.) closer to the human inhabitants. The class aimed to test the various possibilities for Kai Tak to transform into a new vibrant and sustainable living hub. 250

Electives + Interdisciplinary Courses

Tsun Hang Ares CHAN Chui Sim LO, Cadence Hoi Kiu NG, Cherry

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Dialogues and Depictions of Data and Dynamics ARCH7352 Research Seminar in Landscape Technology

Instructor: Jason HILGEFORT

The seminar focused on visual, verbal, and video communication as a series of techniques to enhance. Tracing back to landscape paintings, to dynamic mapping, to short form videos; the course reflected on storytelling and presentation of spatial practice. In our current society, we as landscape designers have to find ways to express our works in ways that directly speak to both fellow experts and the common person. The seminar used student’s parallel works to allow for a series of quick tests/demonstrations on how to share ideas in an array of ways. Students experimented with a variety of contemporary video making formats - from short form social media to documentary style. They were also tasked with using a variety of forms of verbal presentation methods in class. These illustrated a number of ways to structure a presentation from PechaKucha, to TedTalks, etc. These mediums and methods were explored to further the communication of design ideas and research findings. 252

Electives + Interdisciplinary Courses

Anyi LYU, Anny

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Landscape Practicum ARCH7389 Landscape Practicum

Instructor: Bin JIANG

The course invited four rising stars in the field of landscape architecture to deliver four different design workshops. The invited designers brought cuttingedge knowledge and approaches from pioneering design studios to the class. The workshop aimed to let students learn the critical design philosophy, methods, and approaches adopted by influential design studios. Moreover, the course aimed to let students build up professional networks and initiate their career plans by communicating with and following successful role models. Unlike a conventional design studio, the workshop was more intense, as we aimed to let students finish the majority of the work within the three-day workshop rather than having a large portion of work that needed to be completed in the final weeks. The workshop included a wide variety of activities, such as onsite investigations, seminars, discussions (brainstorms), working model making, sketch and collage making, and quick rendering of conceptual drawings. The activities were specified by the invited instructor to fit their unique topic, objectives, and methods. 254

Electives + Interdisciplinary Courses

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Digital Heritage Theory and Application

CONS8224 Digital Heritage Theory and Application

Instructor: Linda SHETABI

Teaching Assistant: Limiao HUANG

In this course we critically examined digital tools and methodologies central to contemporary heritage conservation. Students used advanced digitization techniques, including LiDAR, photogrammetry, and 3D modelling, to explore the myriad possibilities digital tools offer in site investigation, documentation, and interpretation. Building on these digital assets, students integrated Artificial Intelligence to produce enhanced digital narratives that shed new light on heritage values, linking people, history, and place with interactive interpretation strategies. Throughout the process we reflected on the ethical implications of such approaches, and examined the ethical responsibilities of global, national, and local institutions in safeguarding cultural assets amid escalating environmental and geopolitical threats. Through a combination of seminars, practical training workshops, and collaborative projects, students developed comprehensive digital narratives that incorporated tangible and intangible heritage elements and contextualised their significance. This course aimed to develop a nuanced understanding of the complexities in digitising heritage and developing compelling storytelling narratives. 256

Electives + Interdisciplinary Courses

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Material Matters

Global Perspectives and Local Practices

CCGL9076 Common Core Course

Instructor: Susanne TRUMPF

Teaching Assistants: Yu Chung HOW, Jonathan Han BAN Yu Yuen HUI, Alyssa

Material Matters engaged students in critical examinations of global material consumption and its environmental consequences. Through weekly seminars and hands-on fieldwork, students investigated material extraction, production, and lifecycle impacts across Hong Kong’s landscapes. The course integrates global supply chain analysis with local research using the TAL-L materials library, enabling students to document and assess local materials’ ecological footprints. Students engaged with contentious contemporary issues— industrialisation and labour practices, recycling innovation, and environmental justice—while developing transdisciplinary perspectives on sustainable design. Assignments included material documentation, prototyping exercises, and research-based design proposals that challenged conventional production practices. Ultimately, the course equipped students with critical frameworks to understand, evaluate, and responsibly engage with the material processes shaping built and natural environments. 258

Electives + Interdisciplinary Courses

259

The City

Histories of Urbanism and the Built Environment CCHU9048 Common Core Course

Instructor: Linda SHETABI

Teaching Assistants: Claudia MONTERO Sum Yin Silviane LO

This course explored how cities are shaped by social, political, economic, environmental, and cultural forces across history. Through thematic topics, students examined the emergence of cities from the earliest settlements and traced how urban life has been reshaped through modernism, colonialism, crisis, housing, environmental concerns, sustainability, heritage, and visions of utopian and dystopian futures. By connecting urban form with lived experience, power, identity, and belonging, the course developed a critical understanding of how cities evolve and how they may be imagined and transformed. A collaborative future-city project and individual reflections enabled students to translate course concepts into a shared urban narrative, strengthening their ability to negotiate diverse ideas, respond to feedback, and develop collective proposals for future cities. 260

Electives + Interdisciplinary Courses

Nature in the City

Beyond the Concrete Jungle CCHU9058 Common Core Course

Instructor: Gavin COATES

Teaching Assistants: Yan Chi HONG Sin Ting LAU, Sindy

This course explored our relationship with the natural environment using the urban built infrastructure, cultural habits and traditions, and the creative arts to provide a framework for the students’ exploration of the intersection between the natural world and our urban environment. First, students observed our attempts to exclude or suppress nature in a written reflection on the subject ‘Nature in my Home’. Then through the medium of group videos on the subject of ‘Our Relationship with Nature in the City – A Case Study’, they critically explored the relationship between development and nature in the context of the urban infrastructure. Finally, they applied their observations and understanding of nature in the city to develop techniques, analyses, and metaphors, to illustrate and communicate issues related to other disciplines and to a variety of public stakeholders by means of metaphorical ‘Tree in the City’ posters. Teaching and learning activities included interactive games, field trips to discover the storyline of urban development, in-class research and student-led discussions, group verbal and slide presentations to peers, online and wall board opinion polls, peer reviews, feedback tutorials on assignment proposals, and a metaphorical poster gallery event incorporating verbal reflections and discussions. 262

Electives + Interdisciplinary Courses

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Material Ecologies

Local Practices and Global Impacts

CCGL6002 Common Core Course

Instructor: Susanne TRUMPF

Teaching Assistant: Jonson JIN

We are all confronted with a broad range of unsustainable material practices in our everyday lives. While we start to be more aware of these issues, such as the impacts of productive landscapes and pollution of single-use polymers, there are many materials we see, touch, and interact with whose life cycles remain unclear. In most cases, the details about their sourcing, processing, and production practices are largely untraced or inaccessible. In this interdisciplinary course on sustainable material practices, students gained an understanding of modern material taxonomies, mapping anthropogenic influences, and theoretical and artistic approaches to understanding material in detail. Furthermore, students were introduced to sustainable and creative practices for contemporary material processes. Students learned to understand the ecological footprint of materials used in our urban realm and to critically review the entangled complexities of our global and local material worlds. Additionally, Students discussed a range of regionally sourced samples from our materials library in small focus groups. Field trips and hands-on work allowed students to deepen their understanding of material processes and speculate on future trends for locally sourced materials. This course equipped students to make more informed decisions about materials use and enable you to contribute to a more sustainable future by understanding the impact of our material practices on the environment. 264

Electives + Interdisciplinary Courses

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The Career Discovery in Landscape Architecture (CDLA) CDLA2026 ‘SYNTHESIS’

Instructor: Yapeng LIU, Olly

Teaching Assistants: Yu Yuen HUI, Alyssa An Yi LYU, Anny Tatsuya HUI, Jaden Wing Tsun WONG, Jane Tim Yu LAI, Natalie

In a world where ecological diversity, natural resources, unique cultures, and local communities are increasingly at risk, landscape architecture plays a crucial role in shaping a sustainable future. This dynamic and multidisciplinary field combines ideas from architecture, the arts, urban planning and design, conservation, and the natural sciences to develop innovative solutions that improve the environments we live in. The Career Discovery in Landscape Architecture (CDLA) programme offers students an exciting introduction to this field through handson workshops, site visits, inspiring guest lectures, and collaborative project work. These activities explore the potential of landscape architecture and introduce its tools and techniques, equipping students with the skills and confidence to pursue future careers in creative arts and environmental design. 266

Electives + Interdisciplinary Courses

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ACT! in the Landscape Digital Nature and Design

ACT260319 (Academy of the Talented Program)

Instructors: Ivan VALIN Jonson JIN Mutsing LI

Teaching Assistants: Ching PANG Katrina CHEUNG Cherry ZHANG Jenny YEUNG

This one-week course explored the digital technologies reshaping how we protect, explore, and re-imagine our urban and natural landscapes. Students discovered drone imagery, AI tools, digital mapping (GIS), interactive gaming environments, 3D modeling, and immersive visualization—learning how data, technology, and design could together create new environmental futures. Through dynamic presentations, collaborative workshops, guided fieldwork, and conversations with industry professionals, participants learned to “read” landscapes, collect and interpret environmental data, and experiment with digital tools to imagine alternative experiences of nature and the city. 268

Electives + Interdisciplinary Courses

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Horticulture and Design ARCH7305

Instructor: Ian ROBINSON

The course dealt with botanical and horticultural principles and practices in relation to design. It covered the hierarchical nature of the plant kingdom, the physiological relationships between structure and function of plant organs, responses of plants to environmental factors, techniques for plant multiplication, techniques for plant installation, how to manage the planting of interiorscapes, roof structures and green walls, the management of landscaped sites in terms of nutritional requirements and control of pests and diseases and the selection of grass types for a range of uses. The course then look at the essential Contract Documentation required for the letting and management of Landscape and Maintenance contracts. 270

Electives + Interdisciplinary Courses

Cultural Landscapes CONS8109

Instructor: Bernard BRENNAN

Teaching Assistant: Limiao HUANG

This elective course introduced the concept of cultural landscapes and its relevance to heritage conservation. The course examined cultural landscapes as defined in multiple disciplines such as cultural geography, environmental history, and landscape archaeology, as well as their practical implications within international heritage frameworks. Students learned how to identify and assess different types of cultural landscapes and explored new ways of mapping landscape sites within the context of Hong Kong, Greater China, and East and Southeast Asia. The course also enabled students to address concerns for the protection of the natural environment and conceive strategies for achieving sustainable development through the conservation of cultural landscapes. As part of the learning process, students gained firsthand experience in mapping and analysing Hong Kong’s culturally significant urban and rural landscapes in Sham Shui Po and San Tin using digital and analog tools, GIS, and stakeholder engagement. 271

Topical Study II in Environmental Design SEED6306 Instructor: Siqi JIA

Teaching Assistants: Renfeng WANG Wangyizhang ZHOU

This course explored the application of geospatial analysis and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to address sustainable development challenges and support the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Through relevant case studies, exercises, and assignments, students learned how to collect, manage, and analyze geospatial data, and how to apply the GIS knowledge and skills to solve real-world SDG-related problems. The course aims to equip students with quantitative tools and methods that support sustainable urban design. 272

Electives + Interdisciplinary Courses

Environmental Policy and Management for Megacities SEED6303 Instructor: Kam Sing WONG

Teaching Assistants: Qiuyi XU Wangyizhang ZHOU

This course provided an advanced introduction to public policies for protecting the natural environment, and to conflicts over the use of those policies and who has the authority to make decisions about them. The course introduced students to some core concepts in environmental economics and to familiarize students with the dilemmas and trade-offs that governments face in making decisions with respect to the natural environment. It also aimed to make students aware of a range of factors that need to be considered when making environmental policy. 273

MPHIL / PHD PROGRAMME

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PHD STUDENTS

Xueming LIU LIU’s research interests include evidence-based healthy landscape design: investigating the mechanisms and “dose-response” relationships between urban green infrastructure and human health, with a focus on mental restoration, suicide prevention; urban environment and social equity: leveraging nationwide data and natural experiments to explore how the built environment influences social justice issues, including health disparities and the impact of greenness on social safety and behavioral outcomes.

Lin QIAO Qiao’s current research focuses on developing theories and methodologies to explore how sublime nature impacts human health and well-being in different social and environmental contexts. It aims to assess the effects of various types of sublime nature on mental and spiritual health, as well as to uncover the mechanisms underlying their influence on the relationship between mental and spiritual health. Although Qiao is a researcher at heart, she is equally passionate about helping policymakers, urban planners, and designers to improve social outcomes and foster well-being.

Chuzhen WANG Chuzhen’s dissertation explores how exposure to natural environments modulates the mental, physiological, and neural effects of digital media use among adolescents. Grounded in landscape architecture, environmental psychology, and environmental neuroscience, the research integrates multimodal data including brainbased measures, peripheral physiological signals, and self-reported experiences to advance understanding of environmental influence and to support evidence-based approaches for enhancing youth well-being in contemporary digital contexts.

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Huiwen XIANG Huiwen Xiang is a PhD candidate whose research focuses on agricultural and rural therapeutic landscapes and on disease and health geography. The former examines how agricultural and rural environments, as therapeutic landscapes, promote physical and mental health—particularly the health benefits of hands-on practices such as gardening and farming and their links to public health—while the latter examines how geographical and ecological factors shape the distribution and governance of disease and health, with a focus on the spatial distribution of disease and its relationship with green space.

Yun SHU Yun is a PhD candidate at the Division of Landscape Architecture at the University of Hong Kong. Her current research interests include exploring the impacts of the Restorative Effects of Different Biophilia Environments on Mental Health Through Visual AI.

Yufei HUANG Yufei Huang is a PhD Candidate in the Division of Landscape Architecture at The University of Hong Kong. His research investigates urban systems and planning, focusing on the observation, assessment and optimisation of urban infrastructure. His past work covers global airport spatial pattern optimisation, China nighttime blue light evaluation, metropolitan park assessment, and US green space exposure optimisation. His work aims to advance the understanding of urban system operation and provide scientific support for evidence-based urban planning, towards more resilient and efficient urban environments.

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PHD STUDENTS Dalin Lyu Dalin Lyu is a PhD student at the FUSE Lab in the Division of Landscape Architecture. His research lies at the intersection of urban built environments, human health, and health systems. He investigates how climate change, urbanization, and environmental transformation influence population health, healthcare equity, and resilience. Drawing on his background in architecture, he combines geospatial big data, spatial analysis, AI, and public health methods to examine human–environment interactions across scales. His work seeks to generate evidence-based strategies for creating healthier, more equitable, climate-resilient, and sustainable cities.

Yuqing GUO Yuqing Guo is a PhD candidate in Prof. Bin Chen’s group at the Division of Landscape Architecture. Yuqing’s research focuses on environmental hazards and human mobility, particularly how disasters reshape where people move. She currently focuses on wildfire-induced migration, which integrates causal inference and spatial data to uncover how wildfires drive displacement. Her research aims to reveal the spatial distribution and socioeconomic disparities of wildfire-induced migration by identifying potential thresholds, spatial boundaries, and recovery patterns across social groups.

Huan LU Huan Lu is a PhD candidate in the Division of Landscape Architecture at The University of Hong Kong. Her research examines human– environment interactions in urban contexts, with a particular focus on understanding how human activities relate to the spatial and environmental characteristics of cities. Her research seeks to contribute to a better understanding of urban dynamics and to support evidence-based planning and design for healthier and more sustainable urban environments.

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Han WANG Han’s research utilizes geospatial big data and meteorological simulation models to quantify how urbanization and human activities influence photovoltaic energy yields in the context of climate change. By integrating advanced spatial modeling, this work aims to optimize renewable energy strategies and enhance environmental sustainability in rapidly evolving urban landscapes across various geographic scales.

Ziming LI Ziming LI received his Ph.D. degree from the University of Hong Kong and is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow in the FUSE Lab at the University of Hong Kong. Ziming’s current research focuses on urban land use and land cover (LULC) mapping, developing robust, scalable, and transferable deep learning frameworks to enable fine-granularity classification of urban environments.

Boyang Yu Boyang Yu’s research focuses on urban environmental exposure and human mobility. Using geospatial analysis and agent-based modelling, he investigates how daily movement shapes people’s exposure to urban environments and associated inequalities. His work aims to inform urban planning and design that support healthier, more equitable, and more sustainable cities.

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PHD STUDENTS Yiming YUAN Yiming is a PhD student working at the intersection of remote sensing, geospatial artificial intelligence, and urban studies. His research integrates satellite imagery, street-view data, and spatial modelling to examine changes in the built environment and their social and environmental implications. His current projects focus on urban change detection, informal settlement mapping, urban environmental assessment, and flood reconstruction, with the broader aim of supporting more resilient, equitable, and sustainable cities.

Qiuyu Xu Qiuyi Xu is a PhD candidate whose research explores interactions between urban form, atmospheric processes, and local climate, with a focus on wind, heat, turbulence, and the urban boundary layer. Her work examines how urban surfaces influence atmospheric stability, mixing, and wind structure, and how boundary layer dynamics affect ventilation and heat transport within cities. Combining remote sensing observations and numerical modelling, her research seeks to better understand urban atmospheric dynamics and support climateresponsive and resilient urban planning and design.

Yadian WANG Yadian is a PhD Candidate at the HKU Division of Landscape Architecture’s FUSE Lab and an exchange scholar at Stanford University’s Doerr School of Sustainability. She holds an MLA and an MPhil in Earth Sciences and served as an HKU PhD Ambassador (2024–2025). Her research focuses on human–environment interactions, climate change, and environmental justice.

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KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE + RESEARCH

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Bin JIANG Associate Professor BEngUP Hunan; MSLA Peking; PhD Illinois; CELA

Prof. Bin Jiang is Director of the Division of Landscape Architecture, a tenured Associate Professor, and Director of the Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA) programme at The University of Hong Kong. He serves as Founder and Director of the Urban Environments & Human Health Laboratory (UEHH Lab) and the Multisensory CAVE Lab (MCAVE). His scholarship sits at the intersection of landscape architecture, environmental psychology, public health, and data science, focusing on integrating empirical research, design, and education to safeguard public health and social justice. Key Credentials & Distinctions: •Stanford’s World’s Top 2% Scientists (2025 List): Ranked #1 nationally in Landscape Architecture and #17 in Urban & Regional Planning among Chinese scholars; recognized among the top 336 scientists globally in Urban & Regional Planning. •Global Academic Impact: Over 3,200 citations with an h-index of 29. Ranked #4 globally in Landscape Design, #12 in Nature & Health, and #23 in Landscape Architecture on Google Scholar. •ResearchGate Recognition: Ranked in the Top 1% of researchers globally in Architectural Engineering and Urban/Rural Sociology, and Top 3% across all ResearchGate members. •High-Impact Publications & Media: Lead author of a Nature Cities (2025) cover-feature article, author of landmark books with Routledge (Healthy Landscapes, 2025) and Springer Nature (Landscape Empowerment); research cited by the WHO, World Bank, and The New York Times. •Academic Leadership & Practice: CELA Board Member & Regional Director (Asia-Pacific, Middle East, Europe), Associate Editor-in-Chief of Landscape Architecture Frontiers, backed by over 12 years of practice with top design firms (PWP, Turenscape, EDAW).

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Knowledge Exchange + Research

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Bin JIANG Associate Professor BEngUP Hunan; MSLA Peking; PhD Illinois; CELA

Prof. Jiang translates landscape-health research into human-centered environments and actionable policy. His work follows three tracks: designing restorative landscapes for vulnerable groups; creating theoretical guidelines and digital evaluation tools applied by industry at scale; and advising policy bodies to ensure urban greening rests on science. Key Spotlights: Cute Landscape: Therapeutic Design for 12355 Youth Service Centre Applying stress-recovery research, Prof. Jiang designed a therapeutic landscape for youth receiving counselling. By pairing biophilic elements with welcoming “cute” design features (soft forms, intimate scale), this non-clinical setting lowers defensiveness and aids emotional healing. Digital Evaluation & Design Guidelines for Healthy Communities Synthesizing 60 years of research, Prof. Jiang developed a healthy community framework, 10 design principles, and a digital evaluation system. Partnering with China Vanke Co., Ltd. (e.g., Hainan’s Mountain View Residence), his team directly translated science into large-scale developer practice. Prof. Jiang served as the healthy community design consultant, providing theoretical support, design methods, and specific revision recommendations Urban Nature and Human Health: Policy Uptake & Public Engagement Drawing from 60+ publications, Prof. Jiang advances evidence-based greening in public policy and debate. Cited by global bodies like the WHO and World Bank, and covered by major media, his work ensures urban greening decisions are grounded in science.

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Knowledge Exchange + Research

Cute Landscape: Therapeutic Design for 12355 Youth Service Centre

Digital Evaluation & Design Guidelines for Healthy Communities

Urban Nature and Human Health: Policy Uptake & Public Engagement

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UEHH

Urban Environments & Human Health Lab

Lab Director: Bin JIANG Lab Members: Xueming LIU, Jiali LI, Lin QIAO, Chuzhen WANG , Yun SHU, Huiwen XIANG, and Rui JI Research Themes: Healthy City & Healthy Landscape Urban Nature & Mental Health Ecological Infrastructure & Human Health Urban Environments & Social Justice Mission: 1. Contributing to the fundamental scientific basis of Landscape Architecture and other highly relevant fields. 2. Linking the science to arts and humanistic scholarship in the field of Landscape Architecture and other highly relevant fields. 3. Linking the science explicitly to Landscape Architecture practice through guidelines, standards, advice, evaluation studies, etc Key Research Questions: 1. How, and to what extent, do a wide variety of urban environments, especially natural landscapes, influence human health and wellbeing? 2. How can virtual reality and other cutting-edge techniques be used as a tool to study impacts of urban environments on human health and wellbeing? 3. How can we challenge and develop the established theories, concepts, and notions? 4. How can scientific evidence found in the lab be used to direct or support urban and landscape planning and design practice?

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Knowledge Exchange + Research

Road Greenness & Driving Performance: A Real-World Experiment

Urban Nature and Human Health: Policy Uptake & Public Engagement

Environment–Lifestyle–Health framework in Public Housing: A Natural Experiment

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Chao REN Professor BArch; PhD; BEAM Pro

Dr. Chao REN is a Professor at the University of Hong Kong. She is the Programme Director of the Msc in Sustainable Environment Design. She specializes in climate responsive design, applied climatology, and urbanscale climate change and health. Chao’s multi-dimensional, crossdisciplinary research has transferred her scientific findings into new knowledge and real impacts to address social needs, enhance policymaking and support evidence-based designs in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Singapore, The Netherlands, France and Thailand since 2006. She has contributed to several international collaborative research reports as a lead author, including the IPCC AR6 (Chapter 6 Cities, Settlements and Key Infrastructure), Climate Change and Cities ARC3.3, the 7th Global Environment Outlook (GEO-7), The United in Science 2023 , the China Annual Report of the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change (since 2019) and the 5th China National Assessment Report on Climate Change. She has been named in the World’s Top 2% of Scientists List by Stanford University (since 2023) and Top 1% Scholars by Clarivate (2025). Internationally, Chao is co-Chief Editor for Urban Climate since 2024. She serves on the management committee of the Global Heat Health Information Network, a joint initiative of the World Health Organization and the World Meteorological Organization, and the steering committee of the Health Knowledge-Action Network of Future Earth (202629). Locally, she serves as a Member of the Strengthen Emergency Preparedness and Response Strategic Committee of the Hong Kong Red Cross (since 2023).

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Knowledge Exchange + Research

Association of urban built environment and socioeconomic factors with suicide mortality in high-density cities: A case study of Hong Kong

Developing a rapid method for 3-dimensional urban morphology extraction using open-source data

GIS-based mapping of Local Climate Zone in the high-density city of Hong Kong

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Bin(Binley) CHEN Associate Professor BSc WHU; PhD BNU;

Prof. Binley Chen is an Associate Professor in the Division of Landscape Architecture, Director of Future Urbanity & Sustainable Environment (FUSE) Lab, Deputy Director (interim) of Urban Systems Institute, and HKU-100 Scholar at The University of Hong Kong. Prof. Chen’s research leverages geospatial big data, data-model fusion, and advanced interdisciplinary approaches to investigate the interaction loops between environmental change, human activities, and public health. Specifically, his major research includes the remote sensing of built and natural environmental changes; modelling of humanenvironment spatiotemporal interaction; and impact of environment and human activities on public health. He has published over 90 refereed publications (with Google Scholar Citations of 20k+, H-index of 51) in top journals such as Science, Nature family (Sustainability, Human Behaviour, Cities, Communications), and PNAS. 2026 2024 2024 2024-2025 2021-2025 2024 2023 2022 2021

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National Science Foundation of China Excellent Young Scientist (Type-B) HKU Outstanding Young Researcher Award HKU Research Output Prize HKU Scholar in the Top 1% worldwide ranked by Clarivate Analytics World’s Top 2% Scientists by Standford University Geospatial World 50 Rising Stars International Society of Digital Earth Young Scientist Award Global Young Scientist Award in Frontier Science and Technology American Association of Geographers (AAG) EarlyCareer Award in Remote Sensing

Knowledge Exchange + Research

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FUSE

Future Urbanity & Sustainable Environement (FUSE) Lab

Lab Director: Bin(Binley) CHEN Lab Members: Shengbiao WU, Xidong CHEN, Xiaoxin ZHANG, Xiaoling WANG, Xinxin WU, Ziming LI, Huan LU, Han WANG, Yufei HUANG, Yadian WANG, Yuqing GUO, Boyang YU & Yiming YUAN

Vision: FUSE Lab at the University of Hong Kong aims to leverage geospatial big data, data-model fusion, and advanced interdisciplinary approaches to investigate the interaction loops between urban environmental change, human activities, and public health, with the ultimate goal of contributing to sustainable and healthy cities. Research Themes: •Built and Natural Environmental Changes •Human-Environment Spatiotemporal Interaction •Impact of Environment and Human Activities on Public Health •Urban Environment Improvement Theory and Adaptation Pathways Key External Grants: •PI: Intelligent “watch” of urban trees: An object-based multifaceted monitoring of tree dynamic and pollen risk. Research Grants Council (RGC) of Hong Kong General Research Fund (GRF) 2025. •PI: Multi-dimensional Sensing and Moldeing of Built Environment. NSFC Excellent Young Scientist Fund (Type-B), 2026. •Co-PI: Exploring an adaptive transboundary flood risk governance framework in the Greater Bay Area: An enhanced social-ecologicaltechnological systems approach. Research Grant Council (RGC) of Hong Kong Collaborative Research Fund (CRF) scheme, 2026.

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Knowledge Exchange + Research

A total of 19 papers as ESI Highly Cited

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Mathew PRYOR Associate Professor of Teaching BA(Hons) Heriot-Watt; CMLI; RLA; FHKILA; AAHKILA

Mathew is a landscape architect with more than 30 years’ experience in nature-based landscape practice in Southeast Asia. He has led numerous landscape restoration and ecological enhancement projects and is a technical expert and innovator in design, creation and management of wetland, terrestrial and urban habitats. Best known as one of the project leads on the HK Wetland Park project, he has extensive experience in the planning and implementation of ecotourism projects. He has also helped establish best practice in HK in the landscape treatment of slopes, street tree management, mature tree transplanting and urban mini-forest projects. Re-naturing Hong Kong Over the last four years we have been developing RnHK as a comprehensive archival resource bringing together information relevant to the re-naturing of Hong Kong - the creation, restoration and enhancement of our natural landscapes, ecological habitats and urban forest. Nature-based approach to landscape soils Our three-year study is investigating nature-based approaches to soil generation and the development of practical processes that can create bioactive (living) soils for use, at scale, within urban landscapes, as well as remediating soils in existing planting. Urban Mini Forests In parallel, the team are working with HKILA, CEDD North District Office, and AECOM Ltd on the development of an enhanced mini forest demonstration project within the Fanling North New Development Area, to highlight the potential of living soils.

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Knowledge Exchange + Research

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Ivan VALIN Associate Professor of Practice BSc (Arch) Virginia, MLA + MArch UC Berkeley

Ivan Valin is an Associate Professor of Practice at the University of Hong Kong. His ongoing research and design is seated in a multidisciplinary background and explores urban and environmental design at the intersections of strategy, technology, and detail. Valin’s design work has been exhibited internationally with the National Building Museum, Housing for Humanity, the International Architecture Biennale in Rotterdam, and the Hong Kong and Shenzhen Biennale. Ivan received his B.S. with distinction in Architecture from the University of Virginia and his professional degrees (M.Arch & MLA) form the University of California, Berkeley, where he was the recipient of the G. Hoshi Prize and the J.K. Branner Travelling Fellowship. Ivan has worked for more than ten years in private practice, most recently as a designer with Tom Leader Studio in Berkeley California and AECOM Planning and Design in Hong Kong where he frequently addressed ideas of urban and ecological intervention, hydrological frameworks, and ‘open’ programming. Before joining the Division of Landscape Architecture, Valin held positions in the Department of Urban Planning and Design at HKU, and the Landscape Architecture Department at UC Berkeley. He currently instructs the MLA foundation design studio and leads seminars on Strategic Landscape Planning and Materiality in Landscape Design.

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Knowledge Exchange + Research

HOUGUAN LAKE ECO DEMONSTRATION PARK (WUHAN) VALECHE STUDIO

JOYFUL TREES (ARBORES LAETAE) (HK) VALECHE STUDIO

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Montira Unakul Professor of Practice AB Harvard, MArch + MCP UC Berkeley, PhD Chulalongkorn

Montira Unakul is a heritage specialist. For over 20 years, she has managed programmes at UNESCO Bangkok related to the safeguarding and sustainable development of heritage sites in the Asia-Pacific region. She is frequently invited to lecture at leading universities, most recently the National University of Singapore. She holds an AB with honors in Economics and East Asian Studies from Harvard University, an M.Arch-MCP from the University of California, Berkeley and PhD in Urban and Regional Planning from Chulalongkorn University. She has been conferred honors in recognition for her services to culture by HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn of Thailand and HE President U Win Myint of Myanmar, and by the World Heritage towns of Hoi An, Viet Nam and Luang Prabang, Lao PDR. Mapping Historic Urban and Rural Landscapes The joint initiative, “Mapping Historic Urban and Rural Landscapes in Hong Kong and Its Wider Context within the Greater Bay Area”, is led by The University of Hong Kong (HKU), Hong Kong Institute of Architectural Conservationists (HKICON), Hong Kong Institute of Landscape Architects (HKILA), and Macao University for Tourism (UTM). It seeks to innovate mapping approaches for historic landscapes and to use this evidence as a basis to advocate for more informed design and planning across various sectors. (World) Heritage Management Montira has authored and edited standard-setting publications related to conservation, community empowerment, and sustainable urbanism. Recently, she conceptualized recent studies on industrial heritage and natural heritage in Southeast Asia issued by UNESCO.

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Knowledge Exchange + Research

Edited the UNESCO publication Managing World Heritage Conservation Archives (2025), a comprehensive toolkit which is the first of its kind in the world, that has now been translated into Chinese, Russian, Bahasa Indonesian, Thai, Khmer and Ukrainian.

Convened a series of events on historic landscape mapping and revitalization. Findings will be shared in a special issue of Yuan Lin journal, an exhibition and workshop during the IFLA World Congress 2026.

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Ashley Scott KELLY Assistant Professor BScArch Michigan; MArch Harvard

Ashley Scott Kelly is assistant professor and director of the Bachelor of Arts in Landscape Studies at HKU. He advocates for a critical practice of landscape architecture in global development, coupling critical theory with advanced environmental modelling and geographic information systems (GIS). His research focuses on filling knowledge gaps for sustainable development, applying design methods to landscape ecology for the study, advocacy, design and delivery of projects in ecologically complex and contested landscapes. Recent works include tropical road design guidelines, wildlife corridor modeling, and coupling remote sensing with historical narratives for novel impact assessment. Ashley teaches landscape planning and geospatial technologies, coordinated HKU’s MLA Thesis for nine years, and engages civil society across Southeast Asia. He is co-author of Critical Landscape Planning during the Belt and Road Initiative (Springer, 2021). Current Projects: • Counter-assessment: Principled engagement strategies for landscape planning in the Dawna-Tenasserim Landscape (2024–2027) grant from Hong Kong Research Grants Council General Research Fund (GRF). • Landscape Planning Across the Digital-Environment Nexus in Southeast Asia (2025–2026) grant from the Gallant Ho Experiential Learning Fund. Invited roles include co-facilitating the Myanmar delegation to the Asian Development Bank’s Forum on Sustainable Infrastructure and talks at Duke-Kunshan University’s Environmental, Geostrategic, and Economic Dimensions of the Silk Road Economic Belt, the National University of Singapore’s Asia Research Institute, and Silpakorn University, Thailand.

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Counter-assessment of a planned highway in southern Myanmar advances environmental accountability through analysis of high-resolution satellite imagery and thousands of construction photographs, landscape modelling, and a geospatial chronology from 180 source documents (2026).

Geotechnical mass-balancing calculations and modelling ground clearance from power transmission lines reassess the EIA for a 60km water transfer tunnel and supporting infrastructure spanning Chiang Mai, Mae Hong Son, and Tak provinces, Thailand. Presented to the Karen Environmental and Social Action Network, environmental lawyers at EarthRights International, and the People’s Network of Yuam, Ngao, Moei and Salween River Basins (2026).

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William SHIVERS Assistant Professor BLA LSU; MLA Harvard; PhD Virginia

Professor William Shivers investigates landscape and environmental histories of American, Transpacific, and SE Asian cultural landscapes. Within these geographies he is interested in understanding the role of environments towards nation-building and competing views of nature from a colonizer/colonized perspective. His work uses a multispecies approach, centering culturally and ecologically significant plant species as a method of inquiry weaving in design research methods from landscape architecture. This provides an innovative approach to historical research, moving the practice beyond its typical textual analysis. Framed temporally from 19th century colonization and practices of Empire, he traces the development of colonial landscapes and infrastructures to their transformations into landscapes of leisure and global consumption seen today. He is currently working on a comparative research study of the orchid trade in SE Asia and the lingering colonial effects on botanical aesthetics, industrial production, and environmental stewardship in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Thailand. Key Publications: Shivers, William. 2023. “The Tree at the Center of Collapse: ‘Ohi’a Lehua and Hawaii’s Future” Landscape Architecture Frontiers 10 (5): 84-91. Shivers, William. 2021. “It’s Not Like the Postcard.” Places. Active Grants: Faculty Start-Up Fund DLA Internal Seed Grant

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Orchid Study 1: Temple

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Changxue SHU Assistant Professor BArch & MArch Tongji; MSc Bauhaus Weimar; PhD PoliMi EU Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellow; MPIWG Visiting Senior Research Fellow

Prof. Dr. Changxue Shu is a historian and conservator who examines how local architecture shaped globalized scientific knowledge. Trained in architecture, urban studies, and heritage conservation, she addresses international issues of scientific modernity by leveraging China as a historical setting. Her research investigates international empirical data linked to brick, stone, mortar, bamboo, and local gazetteers to raise critical epistemic questions. She has recently received an Early Career Award from the Research Grants Council (RGC) of Hong Kong—one of the most prestigious research honors in the region—setting a research milestone for the Faculty of Architecture. Acknowledging her transformative project, “Mortar: Material Weakness and the Scientific Value Revisited,” the RGC stated that the project “challenges the epistemically hegemonic frameworks of the modern scientific value system.” The international panel commended the large intellectual ambition and extraordinary originality of this interdisciplinary study, citing its profound intellectual, practical, and global impacts across the history of science, STS, and architectural conservation. Professor Shu’s stellar global trajectory includes a Marie SkłodowskaCurie Fellowship, a Needham Research Institute fellowship, and a Visiting Senior Research Fellowship at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin. Serving continuously in strategic advisory roles for the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), her work establishes a versatile toolkit advocating for an inclusive global history of knowledge.

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Key Credentials, Appointments and Honours Recipient, Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Individual Fellowship, European Union Horizon 2020 Programme (2017–2020). Peer-reviewed Visiting Senior Research Fellow, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG, Berlin, 2026/27). Early Career Award and invited honoree, Hong Kong Research Grants Council (RGC, Project No. 27617326), 2026. Invited expert on global heritage evaluation frameworks; Liaison between the ICOMOS International Scientific Committee for Stone and the Sustainable Development Goals Working Group, ICOMOS. Key Publications Shu, Chang-Xue*. 2026. How the historical structure of local gazetteers conditioned modern science: Machinery in China, 1840-1949. International Journal of Digital Humanities. Doi: 10.1007/s42803-02600132-0. Shu, Chang-Xue*. 2024. How construction history shaped globalisation: The nineteenth and twentieth century Eurasian cases. In Construction Matters, eds. Stefan Holzer, et al., Zurich: vdf Hochschulverlag, 9981005. Active Grants: Principal Investigator, Bamboo: Scientific Value and the Chinese Landscape Revisited (2024–2027). Principal Investigator, Mortar (2027–2029). Principal Investigator, Heritage Science Thinking, RGC-funded education plan (2027-2029). Recipient for book project, HKU Overseas Fellowship Award (2026/27)

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Changxue SHU Assistant Professor BArch & MArch Tongji; MSc Bauhaus Weimar; PhD PoliMi EU Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellow; MPIWG Visiting Senior Research Fellow

Prof. Shu connects research on building materials with heritage conservation practice in China and Europe. Through her liaison role within ICOMOS and academic-industry dialogues, she contributes to professional exchange on material life cycles and practical knowledge across building, urban and landscape scales. Key Spotlights Diagnosis of Ruins series (2024-present) 1. International Workshop: Kuk Po ruins, Hong Kong countryside, 2024–2026 Prof. Shu uses Kuk Po’s historic ruins as a setting for hands-on conservation learning, guiding participants to recognise deterioration and investigate how buildings change over time. Combining field and laboratory methods, she links material evidence with questions of authenticity, integrity and heritage value. Her teaching aims to equip participants with practical skills and critical understanding for informed discussions about the care and conservation of rural heritage. 2. Masonry Vedi: a Sustainable Conservation Planning for Built Heritage in Armenia , July 2025 (co-I: Prof. Dr. Peter Cobb, Faculty of Arts, HKU) Prof. Shu brings expertise in building materials and conservation to the study of the 3,000-year-old Vedi Fortress, helping establish a scientific basis for safeguarding its cultural significance. Working with archaeological and architectural colleagues, she contributes to research that will guide future conservation interventions and mitigate threats to the ruins. The project invites Armenian colleagues, international students and experts to exchange knowledge, supporting the site’s long-term protection.

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LIVING HERITAGE & EMERGENCY RESPONSE International Seminar & Panel Discussion

Diagnosis of Ruins series-Kuk Po Ruins 10 November, 2025

Mansonry Vedi: a Sustainable Conservation Planning for Built Heritage in Armenia, July 2025

ARCHITALKS Episode 4 07 March, 2025

Susanne TRUMPF Senior Lecturer BArch TU Berlin; MArch TU Delft

Susanne Trumpf is a Senior Lecturer in the Division of Landscape Architecture since 2019 and Director of the Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA) programme since 2026. She has practiced in Berlin and Hong Kong and founded TAL-L (tall-materials.org), a materials platform and database, and indialogue, an interdisciplinary design platform. She recently co-funded Feamainn, a material studio based in Hong Kong. Susanne graduated from TU Berlin (BArch), TU Delft (MArch) and is currently a PhD candidate at KU Leuven. Susanne’s research investigates current understanding of material specification within a local landscape context and analyzes how these practices shape extraction and production both locally and in related global contexts. Her research adopts an applied designresearch approach, utilizing design tools to understand, drive, and engage with material practices. Recent Awards and Grants: TSSSU Start-up Fund (Co-I, 2026); HKU Teaching Development Grant (PI, 2025); HKU Teaching Exchange Fellowship with NMBU Oslo (2025); HKU Common Core Teaching Development Grant (PI, 2025), HKILA Silver Award 2021-2023 (awarded 2024), HKU Teaching Innovation Award 2023 (awarded 2024). Recent Design-Research Projects: ‘Compressions’ research bricks made of locally sourced and reclaimed soil, with HKU Engineering (2025), ‘Sai Kung Bricks’ Landscape installation with construction materials from reclaimed soil, Hong Kong (2024); Weathering Station at Tai Tam Tuk Environmental Education Centre (2023 – present); tall-materials.org, Landscape materials database (2022 – present)

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Knowledge Exchange + Research

Bricks made of locally sourced and reclaimed soil, labeled for testing in collaboration with HKU Engineering, 2025.

XR projection of a student project of an urban park and planting strategy for SENT landfill. Shown in The Plan Journal, 2025.

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Linda SHETABI Senior Lecturer BA UCLA; MSc(Con) HKU; PhD UofGlasgow

Linda Shetabi is an international policy analyst, Senior Lecturer, and Director of the MSc in Conservation Programme at the University of Hong Kong’s Division of Landscape Architecture, and an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Liverpool. Expert in heritage conservation and sustainable development, she serves on key UNESCO advisory bodies, including the ICOMOS SDG Working Group and the Heritopolis Society. Her most current research focuses on the intersection of heritage conservation and Artificial Intelligence, and its ethical implications. In 2026, she received a Teaching Development Grant for her project, “Bridging Linguistic and Conceptual Divides: Multilingual Visual Glossary for Nuanced Comprehension of Architectural and Heritage Terminology in English, Mandarin, and Cantonese.” This initiative addresses the challenges of mastering specialized terminology in architecture and heritage conservation education and professional practice, supporting students and practitioners accurately navigate key concepts across linguistic boundaries.

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Knowledge Exchange + Research

Meeting with Seoul city managers on the protection of World Heritage Site (Seoul Oct 2025)

Poster: Reimagining Central

Mondiacult 2025 - ICOMOS SDG Side Event ICOMOS SDG Working Group and the King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture (Ithra), Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

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Gavin COATES Senior Lecturer BLA DipLA (Leeds); DipPCDI; CMLI (UK); MCSD (UK); FHKILA; RLA; CA; FHEA

Gavin currently serves full-time as a senior lecturer in the DLA, focusing primarily on planting design, landscape technology and biophysical systems. In 2016 he designed and co-taught a Common Core Course entitled ‘Nature in the City, Beyond the Concrete Jungle’ focusing on the relationship between humanity and nature – this course has been rerun multiple times as a summer course in face-to-face and hybrid modes. He is also well known as a children’s book author and illustrator. Gavin is the project instigator of the HK Digital Arboretum (www. digarb.hku.hk), an online planting and ecology teaching and learning and knowledge exchange resource. Initially set up in 2022, it now has 750+ videos featuring 250+ HK plant species. The ‘Planting Knowledge 2025’ seminar, held in May 2025 on teaching and learning best practice in planting and ecology and how nature-based education can address our collective ‘nature deficit disorder’, won the Faculty Knowledge Exchange (KE) Award, 2025. 150 participants joined the Planting Knowledge Seminar 2026 in May 2026 at the HKU Kadoorie Centre. The event featured lectures and sharing on the theme of soil – the starting point of all lives. The International Society of Arborists Hong Kong arranged tree climbing, and Kadoorie Farm and Botanic Garden provided the native pear tree planted during the proceedings!

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Knowledge Exchange + Research

Planting Knowledge Seminar 2026 - Tree climbing activity

Soi

arth Calling all nature-orientated teachers and anyone interested in how nature-based education can address our collective nature deficit disorder. This year with an emphasis on soil!

16 May 2026 / Sat 10 am - 5 pm / The University of Hong Kong Kadoorie Centre Registration: $200 includes vegetarian lunch & shuttle bus to and from the venue Limited capacity of 120 participants / Admission with registration only Event Program consists of a dozen 20-minute talks by teachers and professionals, Registration tree climbing, soil art, and other table activities in a beautiful, verdant venue!

Planting Knowledge Seminar 2025 - Poster

Planting Knowledge Seminar 2026 - Poster

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Francisco CEVALLOS B. Lecturer MScArch Spain; MLA HK; HKILA Associate Member

Francisco Cevallos Barragan is a Lecturer in the Division of Landscape Architecture and Admissions Tutor of the Master in Landscape Architecture (MLA). He is a registered architect (Ecuador), associate member of the Hong Kong Institute of Landscape Architecture (HKILA), serves as member of the scientific committee of the International Federation of Landscape Architecture (IFLA) for the Hong Kong Congress 2026, and member of the steering committee of the Association of Pacific Rhim Universities (APRU). Originally from Ecuador, his research area and practice focus on education, intergenerational justice, and the social construction of nature. Academic Research: Consolidation of the HKU Teaching Development Grant for the research project “The Landscape Idea” (https:// thelandscapeidea.org/) which delves into the social construction of nature by design in the Global North discourse over the 18th to 20th centuries and serves as an educational publicly available platform for landscape architecture theory and design. It was launched and presented in the Conference of the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture (CELA) 2026; the related article “ The Landscape Idea: A Relational Digital Platform for Case Based Learning in Landscape Architecture” is under review for publication in the CELA Landscape Journal (LRR 15). Awards: In 2026, the landscape design studio “Dynamics and Encounters” received an Outstanding Award in the category university studio. The HKU Gallant Ho Experiential Learning grant was awarded for the Galapagos Experiential Learning to take place in 2027. Practice: Led his own practice for ten years developing projects across South America. Part of AECOM as Senior Landscape Designer developing projects in Mainland China and the Middle East.

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Knowledge Exchange + Research

“AI-aided Methods for Landscape Design Education: Promoting Reflective Learning and Design Creativity” presented at the HKU event Harnessing AI for Teaching and Learning Excellence at HKU Conference (left). WLA Outstanding Award in the category University Studio (right).

Public exhibition “Typologies to Overcome” at the Book Street, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam to bring awareness on climate change in thic public space that receives around 1,000 visitors per day (left). Presentation and launch of thelandscapeidea.org at CELA 2026 in Ohio, USA (right).

www.thelandscapeidea.org

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PUBLIC LECTURE SERIES

Landscape Architecture and Moving Elemental Cartographies Candace Fujikane

Notes from the Arctic Leena Cho

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Knowledge Exchange + Research

Plant(s) Matter Sonja Dümpelmann

Landscape Fieldwork: How Engaging the World Can Change Design Gareth Doherty

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FIELD TRIPS

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Lijiang, Yunnan, China

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Lijiang, Yunnan, China

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Hokkaido, Japan

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Suwon Hwaseong Fortress ,Korea

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Kaiping, Guangdong, China

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Chiang Mai, Thailand

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Guangzhou, Guangdong, China

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Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

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Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

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Mae Hong Son Province, Thailand

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Mae Hong Son Province, Thailand

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PEOPLE Head of Divison, Associate Professor of Practice Valin, Ivan BSc (Arch) Virginia; MLA + MArch UC Berkeley Professor Ren, Chao BArch; PhD; BEAM Pro Associate Professor Chen, Bin BSc WHU; PhD BNU Jiang, Bin BEngUP Hunan; MSLA Peking; PhD Illinois; CELA Associate Professor of Teaching Pryor, Mathew BA(Hons) Heriot-Watt; CMLI; RLA; FHKILA; AAHKILA Professor of Practice Unakul, Montira AB Harvard, MArch + MCP UC Berkeley, PhD Chulalongkorn Assistant Professor Kelly, Ashley Scott BScArch Michigan; MArch Harvard Shivers, William BLA LSU; MLA Harvard; PhD Virginia Shu, Chang-Xue BArch & MArch Tongji; MSc Bauhaus Weimar; PhD PoliMi

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Annual 2025-2026 Division of Landscape Architecture The University of Hong Kong Senior Lecturer Coates, Gavin S. BLA DipLA Leeds; DipPCDI; CMLI (UK); MCSD (UK); FHKILA; RLA; CA; FHEA Mak, Vincci W.S. BArch USC; MLA Harvard Shetabi, Linda BA UCLA; MSc(Con) HKU; PhD UofGlasgow Trumpf, Susanne Elisabeth BArch TU Berlin; MArch TU Delft Lecturer Cevallos Barragan, Francisco MScArch Spain; MLA HK Research Assistant Professor Jia, Siqi BSc SDNU; MSc CUHK; PhD PolyU Wu, Shengbiao BSc WHU; PhD CAS

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PEOPLE Adjunct Professor Lam, Kin Che BA, MPhil HKU; PhD UNE Pendlebury, John BA DU; MA DU; MA USFD; PhD NCL Adjunct Associate Professor Au, Benny P.N. BSc (Hons) Imperial; MSc(Eng)(BSE), MSc (EnvMan) HKU Chung, Andy W.L. BEng (Hons) CUHK; MSc HKUST Kehrer, Jutta MLA & EP Germany Leung, Chi Fung BEng (Hons) HKU; MSc Poly Leung, Man Kit BA(AS), BArch (Dist), HKU; MPhil Cambridge Long, Yin MSc Keio; PhD UTokyo Adjunct Assistant Professor Brennan, Bernard BArch DIT; PgDip ARB UCL Chan, Jeremy Y.L. BASc(Hons), BES(Hons) Waterloo; MLA UBC; PhD HKU; ASLA; HKILA; RLA(HK) Chui, Jack S.K. BEng SYSU; MSc CUHK

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Annual 2025-2026 Division of Landscape Architecture The University of Hong Kong Echeverri, Natalia BA Washington; MCP, MArch UC Berkeley, FHEA Hilgefort, Jason BUP UC; MArch UBC; PHD candidate RMIT; AICP Huang Qijin BSSc (AS) CUHK; MA (Dist) AA Ko, Kiki O.Y. BASc UNSW; MBA UniSA Kokora, Michael BA Minnesota; MArch Yale Ng, Sylvia BSLA Penn State; MLA UC Berkeley; AA Dipl Phillips, Steve BA(Hons), IntArch, MA DipArch RIBA, HKICON Robinson, James Ian CHort; HND Wu, Roger Tsan-Sum BArch Bath Yin, Yunjun BArch CQU; MLA Harvard Zhang, Lily J. BA(Arch) UC Berkeley; MArch Princeton Distinguished Fellow Wong, Kam-sing GBS, JP BA(AS)(HKU); BArch(HKU); MASA(UBC); HKIA; RA(HK); AP(HK) Honorary Associate Professor Chu, Cecilia BAA (Ryerson); MA (PolyU); MSc (HKU); PhD (UC Berkeley)

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PEOPLE Visiting Professor Luo, Vincent Z. MSc, BSc HIT; PhD HKU Visiting Associate Professor Lu, Xiaoxuan BArch SCI-Arc; MLA Harvard; PhD Peking Lecturer (Part-time) Chan, Eric P.W. BSc CUL; MSc Imperial Endrizzi, Raffaella BScArch, MScArch ETH Geoghegan, Kevin BSc Ireland; PhD HKU Huang, Brandon X. BArch Tsinghua; MLA Harvard Li, Jiali BLA HFUT; MLA RISD; PhD HKU Liang, Ting Barch ZJU; MLA Harvard Minasiewicz, Natasza MSc WUST Wang, Ting BA(Hons) XJTLU; MLA, PhD HKU Xu, Sonny M.Q. BArch Cornell; MLA (Dist), MArch Harvard Zhuang, Yuan BA Denison; MLA Cornell

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Annual 2025-2026 Division of Landscape Architecture The University of Hong Kong Part-time Assistant Lecturer Nwe, Sandra S.Y. BA(LS) HKU; MLA Penn Post-doctoral Fellow Yang, Yiyang BEng SYSU; MUD HKU; PhD CityU Teaching Assistants: Ban, Han Huang, Limiao Jin, Jonson Q. Li, Mutsing H. Liang, Alys H. Liu, Yapeng Olly Liu, Vicki J. Zhou, Wangyizhang Administrative Assistant Lee, Esther S.T. Academic Programme Officer (MSc(Con), MSc(SED)) Cheung, Tony C.H. tony37@hku.hk Academic Programme Officer (BA(LS), PDLA, MLA) Leung, Athena W.M. athenal@hku.hk Project Officer (Staff grants) Lai, Spandy Y.C. Office Attendant Lam, May M.M.

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Annual 2025-2026 Division of Landscape Architecture The University of Hong Kong

Editor Jin, Jonson Q. Graphic Design Anthony Lam Jin, Jonson Q. Photographers Jin, Jonson Q. Li, Mutsing H. Ban, Han Typeface in Use Inter Tight by Rasmus Andersson Published by Division of Landscape Architecture, The University of Hong Kong Printed in Hong Kong This book is printed on FSC certified and 100% recycled paper. Images by Division of Landscape Architecture, The University of Hong Kong. All rights reserved. No parts of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission from Division of Landscape Architecture, The University of Hong Kong. The content of this publication is based solely on the creator’s respective personal view and hence does not represent the view of the editor,Division of Landscape Architecture or the University of Hong Kong. For information about admissions to the academic programs please contact the Secretary of the Division of Landscape architecture : landscape@hku.hk

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6/F, Knowles Building The University of Hong Kong Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong Tel: +852 3917 7699 Fax:+852 2548 3039 Email: landscape@hku.hk

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