Hello,
This site presents projects across a multitude of topics and locations generally fielded in the design disciplines. I believe most complex problems can be mediated and advanced through design using a wide recognition of development processes and human-environment interactions.
My research and practice focus on scenario-building and filling knowledge gaps for sustainable development, especially in regions that lack adequate knowledge or transparency in development information and spatial data. I apply design methods to land change and landscape ecology, with wide expertise on the manipulation of geospatial data for the study, advocacy, design and delivery of projects in ecologically complex and contested landscapes. Recent works include design guidelines for tropical road infrastructure, corridor modelling for wildlife crossing design, and coupling high-resolution remote sensing with historical narratives for novel impact assessment. Key professional works range widely in scale, from new town planning to the winning entry for New York City’s 46,000-acre Gateway National Park. I offer studio and lecture courses on regional landscape planning, landscape media, and GIS and research-based seminars and studios on environmental conservation, modernization and rural development in Hong Kong, China, South Asia, Southeast Asia (Myanmar, Laos, Thailand), and Latin America. I have coordinated the thesis in landscape architecture at The University of Hong Kong for five years.
Date posted: 17 September 2025
Lecture Title: Landscape and planning in the predictive state: New negotiations for landscape architecture in the smart Earth era Lecture Synopsis: Environmental planning is undergoing a transition from the environmental state—characterized by regulatory processes like environmental impact assessment—to a “predictive state” driven by machine learning, geospatial artificial intelligence, and real-time environmental sensing. This predictive turn complicates the...
www.designforconservation.org/news/public-lecture-on-landscape-planning-at-silpakorn-university
Date posted: 06 July 2025
Congratulations to Maggie and Marcus, two of our HKU Landscape BA(LS) graduates who won the Prize for Outstanding Water Sustainability Undergraduate Capstone Project awarded by HKU’s Water Centre for their final-year studio projects. Project: “Embedding landscape in riverine reserve design: Ecological metrics and manageability to strengthen unplanned community-based conservation networks in northern Thailand” Marcus Leung Lok Yin proposes a landscape planning fr...
www.designforconservation.org/news/hku-water-prize-two-thai-myanmar-border-studio-projects
Date posted: 07 June 2025
Final-year Bachelor of Arts in Landscape Studies students presented their final proposals for landscapes impacted by a planned 60-kilometer water diversion tunnel in northern Thailand. During this capstone studio on the Thai-Myanmar border, led by Ashley Scott Kelly and Yuan Zhuang, our landscape undergrads develop and present a 100-page research report to civil society organizations, visit a diverse range of development projects and programs across northern Thailand,...
www.designforconservation.org/news/thai-myanmar-border-studio-final-review
Date posted: 16 March 2025
HKU Landscape undergrads traveled to northern Thailand in early March for their final-semester studio on regional landscape planning. During the 10-day trip, students traveled more than 500-kilometers overland to document sites planned for hydropower, interbasin water transfer, spoil disposal areas, flow regulation check dams for reservoir construction, river dredging, access roads, and high-voltage transmission lines. Students also visited case study sites of urban...
www.designforconservation.org/news/hku-landscape-undergrads-travel-northern-thailand
Date posted: 02 November 2024
On Saturday, Hong Kong's professional institutes of architecture, landscape, planning, urban design, surveying, and architectural conservation co-organized their third forum on Hong Kong's Northern Metropolis. Design and planning programmes from four universities in Hong Kong presented studios, student theses, and research in and around the site of the future Northern Metropolis. HKU's Division of Landscape Architecture presented two Master of Landscape Architecture t...
Date posted: 14 September 2024
Design Trust Hong Kong hosted an event at Tai Kwun reflecting on Rem Koolhaas's seminal Harvard studio on the Pearl River Delta from roughly 25 years ago. What has changed in the questions designers are asking of urbanization in the region and of the evolution from the Pearl River Delta to the Greater Bay Area? HKU Landscape's professor Ashley Scott Kelly presented on a roundtable with Kate Orff, Stephanie Smith, Mihai Craciun, and Design Trust grantees Elaine Yan Lin...
Date posted: 10 May 2024
HKU Landscape undergrads just concluded their final year with our Thai-Myanmar Border Studio. For its second year, this landscape planning studio course, led by professor Ashley Scott Kelly, examined a series of contentious and protracted development projects along the border between Thailand and Myanmar. These projects included planned dams on the Salween and Yuam rivers, a coal mine in Chiang Mai province, and a large-scale water diversion tunnel proposed from the S...
www.designforconservation.org/news/thai-myanmar-border-studio-2024-final-review
Date posted: 18 March 2024
Landscape architecture undergraduates from the University of Hong Kong (HKU) travelled over 400-kilometers along the Thai-Myanmar Border from Chiang Mai to Mae Sot in Thailand. For its second year, this landscape planning studio course is focusing on a set of controversial and long-delayed development projects along the border, including dams on the Salween and Yuam rivers, a coal mine concession in Chiang Mai province, and the planned large-scale water diversion tunn...
www.designforconservation.org/news/hku-landscape-students-return-thai-myanmar-border
Date posted: 08 May 2023
HKU Landscape undergrads capped their senior year with the Final Review for our Thai-Myanmar Border Studio. This year, students focused on a set of controversial and long-delayed development projects along the Thailand-Myanmar border, including dams on the Salween and Yuam rivers, a coal mine concession in Chiang Mai province, industrial zones in Mae Sot, and the planned large-scale water diversion tunnel from the Salween to Chao Phraya basins. Taught by professor Ash...
www.designforconservation.org/news/thai-myanmar-border-studio-final-review
