Designers of Mountain and Water: Alternative Landscapes for a Changing Climate

About this Event

The Sinographic compound (山水), denoting “mountain and water,” is widely shared across many Asian contexts, with different regional traditions and approaches. As shanshui in China, sansui in Japan, and sansu in Korea, the term has historically referred to creative artistic and philosophical visions of the natural world, combining the vital elements of a fully dynamic landscape. With climate change underway, what contemporary elements and dimensions of nature are necessary for designing and building sustainable spaces for human habitation and flourishing? Contemporary landscape architects from Northeast and Southeast Asia are trying to answer this question by rethinking the relation between social and natural forms. Their aim is to design habitable futures at the intersection of the two.

This conference will feature leading landscape architects and scholars from China, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand, as well as Australia and the US, to discuss the perspectives, histories, politics, and the most compelling projects of sustainable design in the Asian context.

This conference accompanies the exhibition Designers of Mountain and Water, which will be on display in the Druker Design Gallery from January 20 to April 4, 2026. Curated by Jungyoon Kim, Associate Professor in Practice of Landscape Architecture at the GSD, the exhibition features more than 45 works of landscape architecture by 23 practices in Asia.

For more information, visit the conference website

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This conference and affiliated exhibition are organized by the Graduate School of Design and the Korea Institute, Harvard University. They are also supported by the Harvard University Asia Center, the Southeast Asia Initiative, the Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, the Harvard-Yenching Institute, the Kim Koo Forum at the Korea Institute, and the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. The project is also supported by Daniel Urban Kiley Exhibition Fund at the GSD.