Landscape as Transformation: Highlights from the LA Gradshow 2026

GUESTS VIEWING STUDENT WORK AT THE 2025 LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE GRADSHOW

At the Landscape Architecture (LA) Gradshow on 15 May 2026, landscape was presented not merely as design, but as a way of reading the world and imagining how it might be transformed. Year 4 students from the Bachelor of Landscape Architecture (BLA) programme and Year 2 students from the Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA) programme presented their final-year projects engaging with questions of ecology, culture, agriculture, waste, and urban change. Across diverse sites and scales, the showcase reflected how landscape architecture today remains research-driven and deeply attuned to social and environmental challenges.

WASTEXSCAPE'S INTERACTIVE DISPLAY: GUESTS CREATING BOUQUETS FROM CAMPUS TRIMMINGS

Extending that sensibility beyond students’ folios, wasteXscape — a social enterprise founded by LA students and alumni — presented a lower-carbon floral display and invited visitors to create their own bouquets with overgrown trimmings from the campus.

FINAL TOUCHES: DR VICTORIA MARSHALL, MLA PROGRAMME DIRECTOR, BEFORE THE SHOWCASE OPENING

At the opening, Director of the MLA programme, Dr Victoria Marshall, welcomed everyone to the exhibition, while Head of the Department of Architecture, Prof Jeffrey Hou, reflected on the discipline as he delivered opening remarks: “Our profession has the capacity to be transformative; we need to work with stakeholders, policy makers, and be advocates.”

This collaborative spirit was echoed by Shruthakeerthi Karthikeyan (MLA Year 2), who shared, “What the MLA programme gave me was a new way of thinking that takes research seriously, holds uncertainty honestly, and understands design as a collaborative and iterative process rather than a singular act.”

The breadth of the discipline came through in projects engaging questions of ecology, agriculture, culture, waste, and urban change across Asia. Some project highlights include:

FROM BITTER ROOTS TO LIVING ROUTES' — REFRAMING COPTIS AS A LIVING CORRIDOR OF CULTURE AND PRODUCTION BY WU QINGYI (MLA YEAR 2)

MLA Year 2 student, Qingyi Wu’s From Bitter Roots to Living Routes explored how cultivation of the herb, Huanglian, in Shizhu, Chongqing, could be rethought through agroforestry and rural tourism, reconnecting ecological restoration, local culture, and farmers’ livelihoods.

GARDENS OF NEGLECT' — RUDERAL REORGANISATION OF ECOLOGY, TIME AND INFORMALITY IN URBAN RUINS BY SHRUTHAKEERTHI KARTHIKEYAN (MLA YEAR 2)

Shruthakeerthi Karthikeyan’s Gardens of Neglect, reimagined abandoned urban sites in Hyderabad as spontaneous “ruin-gardens”, where neglect and ambiguity create new social and ecological possibilities.

LOCALITY THROUGH CARE — REACTIVATING TELAJAKAN FOR FRANGIPANI IN DENPASAR BY ZHOU YAO (MLA YEAR 2)

In Locality through Care, Zhou Yao examined the relationship between frangipani, ritual, and domestic space in Denpasar, Bali, proposing ways to reactivate small green spaces as part of the city’s living cultural landscape.

MATTER IN PLACE' BY CALYN CHIA XIN MEI (BLA YEAR 4)

A proposal for Desa Penatih, Bali, Calyn Chia’s Matter in Place reframes textile and organic waste not as refuse, but as material in transformation, reassembled into evolving public landscape structures shaped by reuse, decay, and perception.

TASTE IN TIME: THE CULINARY PARK BY CHOO WEI LING, CLARA (BLA YEAR 4, MINOR IN VISUAL COMMUNICATION DESIGN)

Clara Choo’s Taste in Time proposed a culinary park in peri-urban Denpasar that connects cultivation, cooking, selling, and consumption, supporting more diverse agriculture and new spaces for food culture and community exchange.

Together, the projects demonstrated how landscape architecture can move across systems and scales to open new ways of living with complexity, care, and change.

Reposted from CDE June 2026 Newsletter Highlights