Landscape and Urbanism

This studio explored the cultural and historical legacy of our relationship with water over time, exploring the River Don from source to estuary.

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Only one third of the world’s great rivers remain free flowing. Our desire to control, harness and bend water to our own uses has radically transformed these essential natural elements of our landscape.

The post-industrial landscapes we now see are often the result of an unplanned series of accumulations. These fragmented urban landscapes may be a relatively new phenomenon but they are often the result of multiple layers of change derived from earlier rural conditions.

The studio explored the cultural and historical legacy of our relationship with water over time, exploring the River Don from source to estuary.

The resulting projects have challenged the orthodoxy of building ever longer and higher flood defences. Projects responded across multiple timelines and scale, from the immediate context to exploring new futures where inevitable sea level rise causes catastrophic changes, to the way in which we live.

Through an exploration of the communities that lie along the river, water becomes a source of celebration and opportunity to enrich our existence and respond in a positive manner to the threat of climate change.