Landscape Architecture Masters Theses

 

Fully accredited by the American Society of Landscape Architects, RISD’s MLA program is unique in that it gives students access to a wide range of fine art and design courses on campus, along with classes at Brown University, study abroad options and a six-week Wintersession that allows for focused study on campus or off. In addition, the program revolves around environmental and global issues, with recent involvement in projects in Bangladesh, Costa Rica, Ghana and beyond.

In the final year, students complete the course of study by developing a thesis and a methodology for testing their conceptual premise through a committed design project. This final requirement differs from most programs, and allows students to spend the time they need to develop a visual and written language that articulates their interests and future direction. All MLA candidates also participate in the RISD Graduate Thesis Exhibition, a large-scale public show held annually.

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Theses from 2024

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Detroit Jazz Geographies: Marronage and Speculative Urban Futures, Denzel Amoah

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Folding (and Unfolding): A Site-Responsive Strategy for Reusing Construction and Demolition Waste, Jennifer Ansley

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DEFINING SELF IN THE URBAN FRONTIER, YIMENG AN

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Tethered by Nourishment - Exploring Sovereignty within an Urban Food Apartheid, Benjamin Bailey

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Landing: body, site, material, Renata Berta

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Trans-species Communication, Fueled by Efforts of Remediation, Naomi Canino

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Discovering The Lightness of Being, Yuemeng Dai

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Beach Autonomous Zone, Carl Garvey

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Thickness of Place: Urban Stratigraphy and Rammed Earth Construction in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Alexandra Goodenough

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Bilateral Vertical Urbanization, Yifan Huang

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Migrating with the Salt Marsh, Yiming Lei

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Settling Dust, Unsettling Ground, Olivia Newroz

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Conspicuous Repair: Drawing Attention to Brokenness in Public Landscapes, Ashley Pedersen

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Spirit of Place: examining chinese principles of place-making in a contemporary urban context, Junyi Shi

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TIMELESS TEACHINGS & UNBRIDLED POSSIBILITIES, Ruijie TAI

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Revitalizing Public Spaces: Integrating Mental Exercise into Contemporary Landscape Architecture Design, Silin Wang

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Empathetic Reverberations, Tianyue Wang

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A New Grounding, Corey Watanabe

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Fluid Futures: The Revitalization of Yangzhou Through Its Historical Waterways, Feiyang Wu

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Memory and Experiential Lab, Yufan XU

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Small Islands Commons: Retrieving Territory, Identity and Rights in The Bahamas, Fangzhou Zhao

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EquiVision Habitat: The Collective Dreamworks, Shixuan Zhou

Theses from 2023

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Starting From Ecotone Reconnecting Fragmented Mission Hill, Xinyi Cai

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Arctic Resilience: Adaptive Networks of Self-Sufficiency, Jingjing Cui

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Beyond the Lines, Miranda-Max de Beer

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Abundance within Scarcity: Food Security in the Favelas of Brazil, Menglin Ding

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Cities of Tomorrow Future Urban Planning Strategies, Jingyu Ge

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Landscape De/Re-Construction through Art, Manuel Gonzalez

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Liquid Border, YINGFAN JIA

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FLOWS OF SOUND “Harnessing Sound As Critical Urban Resources”, Zuan Lin

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Temporary urbanism-spatial democracy in the temporary city, Shijie Li

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MODERN NOMADISM ——A network of reciprocal moorings, Jinting Liu

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Enhancing Wellbeing In Public Landscape Through Light, Ruiqing Miao

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CRACKS OF THE CITY: Crack as an invitation for informality, Yusha Miao

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The Root of Culture: Human Ritual and the Soils of West Virginia, Aleece Mount

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Celebrate Scarcity: Water Harvesting as Cultural Keystone, Jiajun Ni

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Orchestration of Experience, Jingyi Shen

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SENSIBLE NATURE: To “See” As We Once Did, Yuhan Su

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Vanishing Ice, Zhehao Tang

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Rebuild Relationships Between City, Agriculture and Ecosystem in the World of the Drought, Ninghao Wang

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Moving In, Moving Up, Moving On : The adaptation and preservation of Chinese diasporas through food, Jieqi Yao

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Watering the Soul: Reintroduction of Water to the Urban Space, Danfei Zhang

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Healing the Haunted: Rituals of Mourning and Suture, Pian Zhang

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City as Cemetery, Siqiao Zhao

Theses from 2022

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X-Era: adaptation to the future uncertainty with sustainable Indigenous wisdom, Ruoyuan Chen

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Systemic design: Experiments to trigger pedestrian empathy in the urban system, Yu Chen

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City of intelligent soil: systematic approach towards urban soil mutualism, Yuting Chen

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To mine or not to mine? Epistemological development of the Pebble Mine landscape in Lake Iliamna area as a resilient commons system, Chenfang (Vincent) Gang

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Urban vine: reimagine the scaffolding as a repair opportunity to transform the ecosystem, Shuyi Guan

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Arriving in the city: reimagining the urban footholds for rural workers, Xinlei Gu

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Scalability system: A tool for bioregional navigation, Lulu Hou

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We walk, we live: reclaiming the rights of female and other gender minorities to the urban commons, Wenxi (Hillary) Huang

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Darkness matters: understanding the ecological effects and human sensory perception of night lighting, Zitong (Shirley) Hui

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Field guide to gendered public life : balancing the preservation of the existing vibrant public life with the improvement of the female experience, Christina Koutsoukou

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Regenerating the ground: Using regenerative agricultural practices to increase urban food production and restore the health of soils, Yuxiao Liao

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Anti-gentrification: reconnect Chinatown through culture practice, Xianzhongge (Allen) Liu

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Aquatic assemblages: improving dragonfly habitat and water quality in an urban park, Yan Liu

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Trash matters: material strategies for prolonging the life of single-use plastic, Zixin Li

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Infection-free landscape: adaptable urban open space design during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, Weirong Luo

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Offshore speculation: generative ethics for submerged lands, Leigh Miller

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Design in support of playfulness, Seung Hwan Oh

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Emotional experience: An exploration of reestablishing the connection with nature through novel street tree planning in Providence, RI, Xiuyan Qin

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Living with fire, Mohan Wang

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Farming publics: Use farming practices as a tool to de-alienate people with land, Sirui Wang

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Sensory resilience in urban walkingscapes: Space making strategies for streetside public systems in neuro- inclusive city visions, Yingying Wang

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Slow down: Investigating how pop-up installations transform multi-use space, Yuanrui Wang

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Landscape of resistance: reimagining public space for a vibrant socio-political life, Ziyu Wang

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Zoopolis: repurpose urban infrastructure to welcome invisible neighbors, Yu Xiao

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The Urban fabric: upcycling textile waste into raw material for urban ground surface design, Wenlin Yang

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Agricultural Landscape as cultural practice : through the lens of rice farming, Yumeng Yan

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One land / one ocean: reactivate coastal commons in urban territory, Chengie Zhang

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Bee stations: refueling bees and creating opportunities for education, Jinghan Zhou

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Cross border conservation - China - North Korea border, Ziyu Zhou

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The future of the High Plains Aquifer: addressing potential desertification in the Great Plains, Hongfei Zuo

Theses from 2021

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Solastalgic ecotone: the critical zone in suspension, Bareeq Bahman

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The sixth migration - rural/urban "heterotopia", Pan Chen

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Inclusive multi-sensory landscape: directing visually impaired people in a perception world, Tianqi Chen

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Urban tree community: living with tree spirits, Xueying Chen

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Blur the boundaries: an aerial coexisting system for birds and humans on rooftops, Yu Fang

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Holding: speculative infrastructure for fire mitigation, Ian George

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Rewilding Seattle: a green network for both humans and non-humans, Zhouqian Guo

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Mutable landscapes: diversity through the lens of the earth's biomass, Ilya Iskhakov

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The TEK-way: traditional ecological knowledge: a catalyst to building resilient communities, Smera Rose Jacob

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Transforming islands: a living memorial for the Marshall Islands, Chengwen Jiang

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Reimagining the damage: an exploration on urban brownfield regeneration strategies, Jun Jiang

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Re-foresting: cohabitation of human and trees, Chengyu Ke

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Filmic landscape: a performative space with multi-medium, Zhihong Ke

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Land, labor, water: an agricultural commons in the Central Valley of California, Jacob Lightman

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Post-industry brownfield renewal system: precision strategy and design via the new methodology, Sirui Li

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Fluid ground: imagining a floating future for Tuvalu, Yuxi Liu

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Eco-waste: household waste material flows in a circular economy, Erqi Meng

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Affordable Green: what cause landscape gentrification and how we deal with it, Siyu Pan

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Virtuality, reality, community, Siqi Rao

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Synthetic undulation: improving the marine life quality on the Indonesian island of Seleyar, Shreeyaa Shah

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Community steward of the deep bay: staging Lau Fau Shan for resiliency through collective participation, Lauren Tam

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Across the boundary: addressing segregation along transportation infrastructure, Ruochen Wang

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Regional food self sufficiency: new visions for productive landscapes, Yiling Wang

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Wandering land: landscape on space station, Xin Wen

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Optics / perception / experience: regenerating agricultural landscape through railways, Tianyi Xie

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A better city for her: design safer public spaces for women in the United States and China, Geruihan Xu