The Thesis Design Project provides a forum for our students to investigate Climate Change through one of two design studios described below and encourages students to question and push the boundaries of contemporary design thinking. The macro-scale and planning intervention form the starting point of this project and requires students to consider the various landscape relationships, holistically and strategically, in space and time. This moves on to articulate the design vision at the human scale and using the materiality expressed in Landscape Architecture.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has identified rising sea levels as one of the consequences of Climate Change and this leaves the UK’s low lying coastal regions vulnerable increased erosion and flooding. The soft edge low lying coastal landscapes across Britain will undergo significant threat as sea level rises. Indicators show this change is already having an effect not only on the land but also on communities. The severe winter storms of 2014 provided a catalyst for decision making and as a consequence of actions by Natural Resource Wales and Gynedd County Council the Mawddach Estuary and coastline in North Wales has been identified as a landscape in transition and a community in transit. Fairebourne 2070 investigates the potential of Landscape Architecture to capture the power of shifting sands, storm force winds, and ranging seas to set the stage for a new imagineered settlement of the future.