TOPOS reporting from the grand landscape architecture graduation award

Article by Ian Witte

Imagine this: you recently finished your MSc thesis in landscape architecture, and suddenly you find your design in the fall edition of the Blauwe Kamer – the leading Dutch magazine in our sector.

This happened to 30 fresh graduates from all kinds of landscape architecture and urbanism study programmes across The Netherlands. All these designers were invited to join the big Kuipercompagnons Graduation Award event, this year hosted in Wageningen. A select few of these graduates were nominated for the award itself. And only two of those were picked as a winner by a professional jury – one BSc graduation project and one MSc graduation project.

As a TOPOS editorial member, I had the honour of attending this event. I must admit I was quite excited to take on the role of a ‘real’ reporter, running around during the after-drinks, collecting the stories of some of those graduates and winners.

The event started off with a set of debates, divided across several themes. Graduates were invited to talk about how their design linked to these overarching topics. As an example, one topic was titled let’s do it differently (figure 1). One of the panelling graduates was Noa, who studied at Wageningen and wrote her thesis about participatory design in the creation of salt marshes along the Wadden shores of The Netherlands. The project is titled to Salt Marsh. This is a verb mocking the Dutch verb ‘polderen’, relating to our century-old tradition of building dikes and reclaiming land from the sea for our own human purposes. And after all these centuries, we have finally started doing things differently. No new polders. Instead, we are starting to build salt marshes, benefitting both ourselves and our environment.

Figure 1: The event’s second debate: ‘let’s do it differently’. (Source: Ian Witte)

After the debates, it was finally time for the graduation award itself. First came the BSc graduation projects. Here, it was not just one, but a whole group of three graduates from HAS Green Academy that won the award for their shared project “Robust Water System South-Holland”. The jury praised them for achieving an MSc-level design product that was complete and coherent.

Next up was the climax of the ceremony: the MSc graduation projects. Seven projects by seven graduates, battling for the big prize. Among those, one project by a WUR graduate: Job Abbink. His thesis was about optimizing urban conditions for the Beech Marten in the city of Rotterdam (figure 2). Job believes that his thesis stood out “because it breaks through the human-centred approach to landscape architecture by truly designing from the behavioural ecology of the animal”. To Job, it was an honour to be acknowledged and to have his work brought to the attention of the broader field of landscape architecture.

Figure 2: Scale model used in Job’s thesis. (Source: Job Abbink)

The big winner of the MSc graduation prize is Regina Klinger. She recently graduated from the Landscape Architecture programme at TU Delft. Her specialization lies in water infrastructure, especially those in dense urban environments and UNESCO World Heritage sites. This expertise can be found directly in her thesis topic: reconnecting the century-old underground waterways below the city of Napoli with the UNESCO-protected city centre above (figure 3).

Figure 3: Visualisatisation depicting Regina’s design for a multi-layered public space. (Source: Regina Klinger)

When asked why Regina was awarded with the main prize for her design titled Vertical Blue, she answered, “I almost forgot again what was being said as I was very nervous and could hardly believe that I won the prize. [… The Jury] described the project as ‘a precise combination of scientific analysis and poetry’. They valued how I addressed present-day challenges such as heat and water storage by working with the old structures that still lie beneath the city. My vertical way of thinking, which connects surface and underground, was seen as clear and consistent. The jury highlighted the academic clarity of the reasoning and the careful way the project links heritage with climate adaptation.”

Altogether, Regina tackled a wide variety of design challenges and dimensions in her thesis. As she mentioned, her vertical way of thinking affected both Napoli’s historic city centre and the old subterranean waterways. This link was used to design not only for heritage and urban climate, but also for prayer, leisure and refuge. After all, the history and residents of Napoli were Regina’s great inspiration. To synthesize the design, she collaborated with the research group CoolCity and Professor Federica Palestino, who provided her with stories and knowledge that were not just about the underground waterways, but also about the historic city and landscape itself. Another aspect that inspired her design are reference cases: De Ruien, the underground canals of Antwerp, and Derinkuyu – an old, subterranean city in Türkiye.

Now Regina is finished with her studies, she works as a junior researcher at TU Delft. There, she continues to apply her knowledge of urban human-water relations, specifically with the multifunctional quay walls in the historic centre of Amsterdam. When asked if something would come off her design for Napoli’s underground waterways, Regina said that she does not expect it to be realized as drawn. However, she believes that winning the award gives her vertical way of thinking more visibility: “I hope it encourages Naples – and perhaps other Mediterranean cities – to see their underground networks as active infrastructures for climate comfort, identity and vertical public life. If the project helps spark that shift, then it has already shaped the future of these tunnel systems in a meaningful way.”

The award event was concluded with celebratory drinks at the well-known bridge on Forum’s 5th floor (figure 4). There was a poster exhibition of the nominated projects. Nominee Job Abbink summarized the conclusion of the event with a positive reflection: “A true celebration and exploration of the themes that engage our generation of designers.”

Figure 4: After-drinks in Forum at the end of the ceremony. (Source: Ian Witte)