NUS Landscape Architecture

Calling for Applicants!
Masters of Landscape Architecture

📆Admission Deadline: 28th Feb, 2026

ℹ️About the programme

The Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA) is a two-year, full-time degree programme for individuals seeking advanced and cutting-edge training in landscape architecture.

The programme is distinctively Asian and pantropical in its geographic attention and urban in its emphasis. With our central location in one of the most dynamic, diverse and rapidly urbanizing regions of the world, we aim to provide a landscape architecture education that is sensitive to the myriad challenges facing Asian cities, as well as opportunities provided by the sheer richness of heritage and cultural, socio-economic and ecological elements of the region.

MLA 2 Option Studio
Living Currents
The studio traversed reclaiming river landscapes trhough regenerative tourism and community memory in Kuching, Sawawak. It explored how the Sarawak river can act as a living cultural and ecological infrastructure for the city.

designstudio finalreview

MLA 2 Option Studio
Holding Ground
The studio, set in the Benoa Bay, Bali, explored the intersection of ecology, culture and design practice through the Bainese Mangroves.

MLA 2 Option Studio
Politics of Conservation
The studio examined the broader socio-ecological and political dynamics of Northern Thailand with a special focus on its cultural capital, Chiang Mai. The works in this studio explore alternative conservation approaches and advocates for socioecological inclusivity and equality.

MLA 1/ BLA 4 Studio
Fifth Nature
The Fifth Nature is a shared, core studio for BLA and MLA students. It acts as a creative research hub toward Singapore’s fifth nature-culture. Rather than one size fits all, our fifth nature is positioned as a container of multiplicities. That is, what comes after the garden city, city in a garden, the city in nature, and go-green? Why, where, and by whom or what?
In this second iteration of the Fifth Nature studio, our BLA and MLA students continued to look through the lens of reserve lands and seas in Singapore, broadly defined. Unlike last year, the outcomes explored the spatial type of the enclosed garden, rather than infrastructure.
How shall we explore fifth nature next year? In what forum might the outcomes of our three-year design research pedagogy be shared? We welcome thoughts on this.

Students from the Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA) program will present and exhibit their work at the upcoming Chiang Mai Design Week, a dynamic platform for sharing knowledge and demonstrating the transformative potential of design.

“Politics of Conservation: Navigating the Socio-Ecological Territories of Chiang Mai”
📍Lanna Architecture Center, Chiang Mai
🗓️Dec 12- Jan 12, 2025

About the Exhibition

This exhibition features work from the “Politics of Conservation” Studio, which engages with the socio-ecological and political complexities of Northern Thailand, focusing on Chiang Mai, the region’s cultural capital. The team’s design research concentrates on four landscape corridors traversing an elevation difference of 1,300 meters: the Doi Pui Peak Nature Trail in the upland; the Wat Pha Lat Monk’s Trail, linking lowland and upland; and the Mae Kha Canal and Phaya Kham in the lowland. Through the lens of the “Politics of Conservation,” the project investigates the frictions between upland and lowland, nature and culture, and conservation and development. It explores alternative conservation approaches against the backdrop of Chiang Mai’s ongoing efforts to become a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Exhibitors

Master of Landscape Architecture
Department of Architecture
National University of Singapore

Shruthakeerthi Karthikeyan, Whaley Yi Wang, Jadel Zhang Xinyao, Shu Yao, Kejie Li, Ryan Chen Zhuoran, Emily Du Xinyang, Jiaying Chen, Vivian Qi Kexin, Yulia Zhou Yao, Lydia Li Mu

Curated by Dr. Xiaoxuan Lu

Acknowledgement

The exhibitors and curator acknowledge the following organizations for their contributions to the team’s study of Chiang Mai: Department of Architecture (Chiang Mai University), Forest Restoration Research Unit (Chiang Mai University), Department of National Parks, Wildlife, and Plant Conservation, JaiBaan Studio, Mae Kha City Lab, and North Forest Studio

Special thanks to Dr. Kanisa Sattayanurak, Dr. Warong Wongalaka, and Dr. Worrasit Tantinipankul from Chiang Mai University, as well as Dr. Richard Engelhardt, former UNESCO Chair Professor for the Conservation of Historic Towns and Urban Center

Many congratulations, Assoc Prof Hwang Yun Hye!

Calling BLA Class of2025.

Have your say in the JAUGES survey. Complete it by 22 Nov 2025 and you could be the early-bird winner of an iPhone 17 Pro Max (256 GB)!

Check your inbox or take the survey here: https://uniges.sg/NUS.html or visit the link in our bio.





doa
ollective

We’re excited to share that the 10th Planting Day is coming soon!

Love engaging with plants? Curious to learn more about the edible and native plants around us? Join us - Landscape Architecture Collective (LAC) - for our recurring Planting Day 10.0. We’ll be spending time in the garden transplanting, identifying and tagging plants as well as composting.

Date: Friday, 28th Nov 2025
Time: 9.00 am to noon
Meeting Point: BLA GIS room, SDE4
Venue: Nasi Ulam Forest Garden (outside Centre for English Language)
Admission: Free
**Refreshments will be provided**

Sign up now before 27th Nov 2025. Slots are limited, so don’t wait: https://forms.gle/kLQe8kdJ1QQeyP7u9

Hope to see you there!

NUS Department of Architecture

It’s review season! Starting next week, join us for the BLA & MLA Final Reviews and get a glimpse of the future of landscape architecture design.








NUS Department of Architecture

You are cordially invited to an online guest lecture by Leah Kahler - Clones, Zones, and Migrants: Politics, Migrations, and Possibilities of the Plant Nursery Trade

Date: 28th October 2025
Time: 9:40-10:40 pm
Zoom Link: https://nus-sg.zoom.us/j/82538213318?pwd=qIF1Oe76y0cpI0nUQVwYkLEnIp5wFo.1

It’s a familiar scene: A tree arrives at the construction site, swaddled in burlap, wrapped with twine, and strapped down to the bed of an eighteen-wheeler after a long journey to the site. The landscape designer who carefully selected every aspect of it— its genus and species, its caliper, maybe even down to the copyrighted cultivar—works with the landscape crew to carefully place the tree— rootball and all—into place, just so. But what relational geographies, market forces, federal policies, horticultural ideologies, and labour preceded this plant’s arrival on site? If a “weed is just a plant out of place,” where do plants belong? What are we to make of plants’ movements across space?

This lecture examines the socio-ecological geographies of the global nursery trade, thinking through the politics, migrations, and possibilities of diverse forms of cultivation.

About the Author
Leah Kahler is a landscape designer and Research Assistant Professor with the Gulf Coast Climate Futures Project at Tulane University School of Architecture and the Built Environment. Her research focuses on the socio-ecological legacies of the plantation landscape, documenting urban-rural material flows through sites of labour, extraction, and cultivation.

This lecture is a part of the BLA/MLA Elective AR5954B “Botanical Urbanism: Mapping socio-ecological territories of horticulture expositions in Asia”, led by Dr. Xiaoxuan Lu.



NUS Department of Architecture

Applications are open for the Master of Landscape Architecture at the National University of Singapore!

We especially invite applicants from ASEAN member states to apply. Two exceptional candidates will be awarded the DOA Graduate Futures Fellowship, which covers 40% of tuition fees per academic year.

Join us at the Department of Architecture (DOA) and be part of a dynamic community shaping the future of landscape architecture in Southeast Asia, and beyond.

Learn more about the programme: https://bit.ly/nusdoa_mla

Applications open October 2025 - February 2026










NUS Department of Architecture