University of Greenwich, Masters Landscape Architecture (MLA/MA)

The five New Coasts projects from the University of Greenwich (London, UK) represent the culmination of 3-years of making landscapes as tapestries – thick, layered, multi-scalar hangings that tell stories of the climate impacted tidal Thames and North Sea. The design projects required investigations across a vast range of spatiotemporal scales, from shipping routes and migration patterns to the decay of abandoned infrastructures and endangered plant species on protected sites.

The collective and experimental approach began after the Covid pandemic, when work had been flattened by too long working digitally and alone. The ambition was to work methodologically, from innovative work in the field to producing precise design representations in the model-making workshops. Students developed individual projects but supported each other learning new techniques and co-curating a public exhibition.

All projects include a stage 1 proposal at a local scale and stage 2 development of strategic proposals at urban and regional scales. The projects selected include students from the final year of the MLA/MA programme as well as first year MLA students who were just beginning their Landscape Architecture education.

There are five criteria we used to select projects: [1] rigorous analysis of material site conditions; [2] contextualisation within regional, national, and/or planetary processes; [3] collectively working together and with care; [4] experimenting with design and representation; [5] precise techniques and practices.

The approach to making tapestries by the Masters Landscape Architecture students has inspired new material practices across the Department and in other disciplines across the Greenwich School of Design.