HKU Division of Landscape Architecture

The landscape design studio Ho Chi Minh City Futures: Typologies to Overcome takes MLA students to read and understand an unfamiliar context within Southeast Asia across scales and respond to the urgent needs of the place. Working alongside local partners, students explored the frictions between development and climate change exposure in Ho Chi Minh City‘s hectic urban core and its peripheries. Their projects proposed site-sensitive approaches addressing the lack of high-quality urban space in increasingly dense districts, the ecological regeneration of neglected sites, and landscape continuity across fragmented urban and rural territories.

Instructor: Francisco Cevallos Barragan F.Cevallos.Barragan
Teaching Assistant: Yapeng Liu Olly Olly Liu

P1: Reclaiming the Swamp by Xiaoying Chen, Eleanore.
P2: Reviving the Water Edge: A Canal-side Community Strategy for Cholon by Lo Cho Yann, Minnie
P3: Stitching the Edges: (Re)connecting the Two Worlds by Li Ruiqi, Anny
 

𝐌𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐥 𝐌𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐆𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐫𝐲 | 𝐃𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐧 𝐒𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐢𝐨 (𝐌𝐋𝐀𝟏, 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟔) 𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐚𝐧𝐠 𝐌𝐚𝐢

This semester, the studio turned its lens toward the historic city moat of Chiang Mai, Thailand. Titled ”INVISIBLE SPACE“ (無明空間), the studio challenged students to investigate complex spatial, cultural, and socio-economic dynamics, designing light yet impactful landscape interventions that champion humanity, inclusivity, and spatial equality for all urban users—from local vendors and long-time residents to immigrants and marginalized communities

Transcending traditional site boundaries, students identified critical locations along the moat to propose interventions unconstrained by spatial redlines. Their design inquiry was grounded in iterative physical modeling—bridging urban context, artistic conceptual exploration, and large-scale material testing to evaluate the real-world impact of their designs on everyday users.

LAND7132 MLA Design Studio II [Section 2D, 2025]
Instructor: Bin Jiang Bin Jiang (The University of Hong Kong)
External Advisor: Pongsakorn Suppakittpaisarn (Chiang Mai University)
Design Tutorial Instructor and General TA: Mutsing Li Huanyang LI
Field Trip Teaching Assistant: Huiwen Xiang
Book and Panel Drawing Teaching Assistant: Xueming Liu

𝐅𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰 | [𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐚𝐧𝐠 𝐌𝐚𝐢] 𝐋𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬𝐜𝐚𝐩𝐞 𝐃𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐧 𝐒𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐢𝐨 2026, 𝐌𝐋𝐀1

On May 6th, our Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA) students successfully wrapped up their final design reviews for ARCH 7131: Landscape Design Studio II, led by Prof. Bin Jiang! This semester, the studio turned its lens toward the historic city moat of Chiang Mai, Thailand. Titled “Invisible Space” (無明空間), the studio challenged students to investigate complex spatial, cultural, and socio-economic dynamics, designing light yet impactful landscape interventions that champion humanity, inclusivity, and spatial equality for all urban users—from local vendors and long-time residents to immigrants and marginalized communities.

Highlights of the Journey:
- Deep Contextual & Ethnographic Research: Uncovering hidden micro-histories and informal spatial behaviors along the 700-year-old city moat.
- On-Site Participatory Fieldwork: A hands-on site investigation in Chiang Mai featuring 1-on-1 partnerships with local students, participatory interviews, and community engagement.
- Iterative Design & Multi-Scale Physical Modeling: Translating social empathy into space through hands-on physical models, spatial testing, and detailed material studies.

A heartfelt thank you to our external advisors, guest critics, teaching team, and collaborative partners in Thailand for their insightful feedback and continuous support! Huge congratulations to all MLA students for their extraordinary dedication, empathy, and rigorous work throughout the semester.

MLA1 Spring 2026, ARCH7132 Landscape Design Studio II
Instructor: Bin Jiang Bin Jiang (The University of Hong Kong)
External Advisor: Pongsakorn Suppakittpaisarn (Chiang Mai University)
Design Tutorial Instructor and General TA: Mutsing Li Huanyang LI
Field Trip Teaching Assistant: Huiwen Xiang
Book and Panel Drawing Teaching Assistant: Xueming Liu

Summer semester Common Core Course CCHU9058 ‘Nature in the City, Beyond the Concrete Jungle’ concluded last Thursday, 23 July 2026 with an exhibition of 73 student posters featuring ‘The Tree of ‘Something’ in The City of ‘Something’, in which the metaphorical tree represents a topic of the student’s choice, and the city represents the context for that topic. HKU Common Core

A huge thank you to all our guests, Jack Tsao of the HKU Common Core Office, Li Yiyang and Icey Wu of the HKU Faculty of Education, Michael Rivera of the HKU Faculty of Social Sciences, Jennifer Eagleton, Louise Fu of Legacy Consulting, Jason Hilgefort of LCC, Ivan Valin, Ashley Scott Kelly, Linda Shetabi and Ting Wang of the HKU Division of Landscape Architecture, Nicer Wang of the HKU Kadoorie Centre, Zhang Ning and Liang Baixi of the Guangdong Hong Kong Macau Greater Bay Area Nature Education Development Centre! 

Instructor: Gavin Coates Gavin Coates 

Teaching Assistants: Sindy Lau Sin Ting, Hong Yan Chi Hong




🏆 HKU Architecture PhD Candidate Receives HKU Foundation First Year Excellent PhD Award!

We are proud to congratulate Renfeng Wang, a Year-3 PhD candidate in the Department of Architecture, supervised by Professor Chao Ren in DLA, on being selected for the HKU Foundation First Year Excellent PhD Award 2025/26.
This prestigious award, established by the HKU Foundation (https://gradsch.hku.hk/current_students/awards_fellowships_and_scholarships -award), gives recognition to PhD students who have demonstrated excellent performance during their probationary period, through publications, research outputs, prizes, or other notable accomplishments. Up to fifteen awards may be made each year.
Renfeng‘s research focuses on urban carbon emission accounting and high-resolution spatial modeling, integrating remote sensing and spatial big data to support low-carbon planning in high-density cities. 

His key achievements include:
* First-authored JCR-Q1 publications introducing the Local Energy Zone (LEZ) framework;
* Contribution to a CRF project shortlisted for the 2025 Hong Kong Green Building Award;
* First Runner-up Award (HKD 25,000) for co-designing the ”Urban Oasis“ project;
* Co-PI on a project funded by the HKU Jockey Club Enterprise Sustainability Global Research Institute.

The official Award Presentation Ceremony will be held in March 2027. Please join us in celebrating this well-deserved recognition! 👏🎉

HKU Foundation First Year Excellent PhD Award

We are excited to share PDLA Studio I “Dynamics and Encounters” has won an Outstanding Award in 2026 World Landscape Architecture’s (WLA) University Studio Award world landscape architecture . Over the past eight years, the studio has crafted a strong pedagogical focus on fieldwork and site-sensitive design for our students.

Supervisors: Francisco Cevallos Barragan F.Cevallos.Barragan
William Shivers, PhD William Shivers
Ivan Valin Ivan Valin

Credits:
Image 2: Ya DENG, Ho Chun MAN
Image 4,5: Timon YUNG
Image 6: Xiaoya WANG
Image 7,8,9: Dennis ISIP
Image 10: Bill LI
Image 11: Ya DENG

Common Core Course: CCHU9058 Nature in the City – Beyond the Concrete Jungle  
   
Instructor: Gavin S Coates  Gavin Coates
   
Teaching Assistants: Cynthia Tam Chi Wan, Hong Yan Chi Hong, Sindy Lau Sin Ting  
   
The summer semester Common Core Course CCHU9058 ‘Nature in the City’ is well underway with a cohort of 78 students. The course site walk was conducted 4 times - 20 students each time braved the intermittent torrential rainstorms to discover all kinds of elements of nature lurking in plain sight in our city!!  
   
HKU Landscape HKU Common Core

The Common Core Course, CCHU9058 ‘Nature in the City – Beyond the Concrete Jungle’, kicked off last week with the ‘Interconnections Game’! 
 
Students are divided into pairs, each pair representing one of a wide variety of topics ranging from religion, politics, art and warfare to artificial intelligence, real estate, ecology, energy, astronomy and economics etcetera. One of each pair stays resident on their topic while the other is the ambassador for that topic. The resident ties the end of a ball of string around him or herself, hands it to the ambassador who then carries the string to as many other topics as possible. Every time the representatives of two topics establish a connection between them, the visiting ambassador ties their string around the resident and moves on to the next topic. This experiential game demonstrates that all areas of human endeavor are ultimately interconnected. The game also serves as a rowdy and chaotic (read ‘fun’) icebreaker! 
  
Instructor: Gavin S Coates .s.coates
  
Teaching Assistants: Cynthia Tam Chi Wan, Hong Yan Chi Hong, Sindy Lau Sin Ting  
  

Revitalizing Historic Landscapes: Lessons from Langtou, China (Apply by 5 Aug!)

We are excited to co-launch our latest professional development short course: ”Revitalizing Historic Urban and Rural Landscapes through Heritage-based Solutions: Lessons from Langtou, China.“
This unique program is a joint collaboration between:
* The University of Hong Kong (Division of Landscape Architecture / MSc in Conservation Programme)
* Tongji University / WHITR-AP
* HKICON 

Why Join?
Through the lens of the UNESCO Historic Urban Landscape (HUL) approach, we will study Langtou—a 700-year-old ancient Lingnan village and its revitalization project. Participants will engage in high-level lectures, group work mapping historic landscapes, application of post-SDG and MONDIACULT frameworks within the online and 2-day immersive on-site field study.

Key Info at a Glance:
📅 Dates: 29 Aug (Online) | 5–6 Sept (On-site, Guangzhou) | 12 Sept (Online)
🎓 Who should apply:  University and graduate students, Practicing heritage/planning professionals
⏰ Application Deadline: 5 August 2026
🎯 Don’t miss this chance to expand your practice with next-generation conservation strategies.
✨ Certificates of Attendance will be provided to participants who accomplish the sessions.
🚀 Outstanding performers will receive a special commendation, which will be considered in applications to the HKU MSc Conservation Programme, provided all necessary admission requirements are met.

👉 Learn more and apply here: https://www.hkicon.org/revitalizinghistoriclandscapes