Urban soil holds the residue of human activity while supporting visible and invisible non-human worlds. It is vital for regulating water cycles, storing carbon, and sustaining life, yet is often undervalued. In the face of biodiversity and climate crises, increased soil literacy is essential for designing resilient cities that work effectively with natural systems.
To promote soil literacy, this project proposes an urban soil survey and a series of experimental gardens along a 10-kilometer trail in Toronto’s Lower Don Valley Sub-watershed. These gardens integrate varying degrees of intervention with one rule: no new soil can be added. Instead, existing urban soil conditions are explored through collaborations with plant life.

The project site, Prek Takong 1, is located in northern Boeung Tompun Lake, once Phnom Penh’s second-largest lake. Due to land reclamation, the lake’s area has drastically shrunk, causing severe ecological degradation and flooding risks for the nearby community. With limited drainage infrastructure, flood severity has worsened annually. ArcGIS analysis reveals major inundation zones and flow directions, with three key flood entry points on the western waterfront. Based on this, a spatial grid guides the planning of buildings, water systems, and agriculture. The landscape strategy integrates indigenous ecological wisdom to manage floods, preserve local culture, and promote coexistence with water.

Five goby species endemic to Hawaii are under threat due to the loss of their ridge-to-harbor migratory routes. Urban expansion has disrupted these pathways through water diversion, port construction, and land hardening—worsening goby habitat conditions and contributing to stormwater flooding, creating shared ecological challenges. This project seeks to integrate nature and urban systems through low-intervention strategies by reconstructing Hawaii’s traditional Ahupua'a system. Through the design and transformation of estuary, urban, and farmland zones, goby habitat connectivity will be restored to help mitigate stormwater issues and promote harmony between people and nature.

Stabilizing Thawing Ground preserves urban Arctic landscapes by mapping, managing, and designing with snow and meltwater in Utqiaġvik, AK. Utqiaġvik sits on ice-rich permafrost and is rapidly warming, putting it at risk. Snow depth and ground saturation play a critical role in heat transfer, making a holistic approach to their management essential. Given the extreme difficulty of importing new materials, the project activates environmental phenomena and routine maintenance as design tools. Furthermore, the project team worked closely with local experts to align its work with city capacity. The resulting proposal gives residents agency by presenting watershed-specific management plans and a suite of analyses to inform future decision-making.

HAIL explores innovative approaches to healthy aging through intergenerational living environments, investigating how landscape architecture can foster meaningful connections between generations while promoting physical and mental wellbeing across age groups in residential communities.

With a rapidly aging population, loneliness and social isolation among older adults have become urgent public health concerns. The literature suggests that intergenerational interactions can help address these concerns by fostering social connections and enhancing well-being. This project represents an innovative effort to develop a toolkit for age-inclusive community design. We assessed the site using GIS data and iCAT-park, a tool developed by our team. Low-scoring site features and elements were improved through the toolkit supported by 8 environmental design strategies. Post-design evaluation confirmed its effectiveness in enhancing intergenerational engagement, while addressing issues related to stormwater management and heat safety.

Stewards of Pyrran is a cooperative board game that reimagines fire as an essential force rather than a destructive threat. Set in California’s fire-suppressed Sierra Nevada, the game invites players to rehabilitate fire-adapted landscapes by removing infrastructure, recovering species, and practicing fire stewardship. Designed for use in outdoor education programs serving 4th–7th graders, it offers a playful, place-based introduction to fire ecology. The game will be piloted at one school, refined through feedback, and scaled across a statewide network – with long-term plans for regional adaptations that reflect local ecosystems to expand fire literacy beyond California.

Re-wetting Großbeeren reimagines a former sewage field outside Berlin as a human-induced peatland that sequesters carbon, restores biodiversity, and fosters new forms of ecological stewardship. By transforming a defunct infrastructural landscape into a climate-adaptive habitat, the project models sustainable land management, flood mitigation, and carbon sink strategies. Both territorial machine and regional park, the project intersects ecological restoration with the need to foster new intimacies between people and peat, which will be vital if either is to persist. It invites public engagement with climate resilience through design, demonstrating how post-industrial sites can become regenerative infrastructures for a warming world.

Those living in skilled nursing facilities run the risk of becoming isolated, depressed, loosing self-esteem and in some cases identity. In addition, this is often the winding down of life for the residents and a challenging and complicated experience for many. Despite these common attributes the experience does not have to be this way but can instead be a celebration of life. When designed properly the garden can be a place of appropriate stimulation, participation, community building, and reconnection to the sacredness and benefits of nature. This responsive garden was informed through a participatory process involving staff and residents and offers two “rooms” for each group and places of shared experience and mutual support.