Dezeen School Shows: a landscape architecture project that addresses Hull's rising sea level is among the projects by the University of Sheffield.
Also featured is a proposal to reinvent Manchester's "lost water spaces" into new landscapes for people and nature, and a rewilding project aiming to transform a suburban area of Sheffield.
University of Sheffield
Institution: University of Sheffield
Course: BA and MLA in Landscape Architecture, MA Landscape Architecture and MA Landscape Studies
Tutors: Aimee Felstead, Catherine Higham, Charlie Young, Charlotte Liu, Elisa Olivares, Emma Beaumont, Fiona McQuaid, Jess Bryne-Daniel, Joanne Phillips, Jono Daniels, Laurence Pattacini, Mel Burton, Nigel Dunnett, Ross Cameron, Russell Light, Thom White and Tom Wild
School statement:
"The School of Architecture and Landscape is defined by the curiosity, values and expertise of its staff and student community, and aims to make a positive difference to research and practice in our professions.
"From the smallest garden to large-scale urban developments and rewilded country estates, our landscape architecture courses embrace all aspects of the science, planning, design, creation and management of urban and rural environments."
Red Bank Regenerative Water Strategy by Rachel Mckinlay
"This project transforms the lost water spaces of north Manchester from wastewater landscapes to new urban commons for people and nature.
"In an era of climate uncertainty, water plays an essential role in the viability of urban living, and the linear water cycle is increasingly seen as an ecological failure.
"We must close the loop of the water cycle and the economy that people live in.
"A regenerative water design applies as a collaborative mindset where water brings together nature and people through a co-dependance leading to co-evolution.
"Spatially, regenerative water design must embrace uncertainty, flood cycles, community participation and adaptive landscape strategies."
Student: Rachel Mckinlay
Course: MA Landscape Studies
Tutors: Jess Bryne-Daniel and Laurence Pattacini
A Wastewater Landscape Biograph: From Biocultural Memory to Repair by Veronica Moreno Jimenez
"The Mezquital Valley holds economic, ecological and cultural values. Its original xerophytic landscape, fractal foodways and native species, which are both productive and connective, have been ignored.
"There is a missing link, the one that joins the contemporary productive landscape with the landscape that preceded it.
"This proposal responds to the loss of identity through the biocultural lens. The Hñähñu never forgot, and their living practices prove it.
"The interventions do not aim to eliminate the consequences of urban wastewater overflow but to use its transformative impact to create a productive landscape respectful of the identity of the valley."
Student: Veronica Moreno Jimenez
Course: MA Landscape Architecture
Tutors: Jess Bryne-Daniel and Laurence Pattacini
Rewilding our cultural Heritage; Reviving dying arts to transform into a wilder future Sammy Kafuby
"Traditional crafts and skills have been forgotten within the UK because of a disconnect between people and the landscape.
"This forgotten link needs to be addressed at many levels using a variety of approaches.
"Rewilding within the peri-urban setting of Birley Moor in Sheffield will provide people with a close link to nature, with people replacing the need for megafauna, which is often needed for successful rewilding projects, allowing it to furnish people with valuable, transferable life skills.
"Utilising historical management skills and hands-on engagement will provide co-benefits for both humans and nature."
Student: Sammy Kafu
Course: MLA (Y5)
Tutors: Mel Burton, Joanne Phillips and Charlotte Liu
Healing Scars; Minas de Riotinto by Jo Gallager
"This project aims to create a public park surrounding the abandoned pyrite smelters in the Riotinto mines.
"This public landscape will retain the industrial history and architecture of the site, creating a space where locals can explore the landscape that holds vast amounts of memories.
"The aim is to reopen an area of the site, allowing people to move through the industrial legacy whilst looking to help restore the contaminated landscape.
"The interventions will reduce the site's pollution and will create visual representations of restoration, helping to educate users on how small changes can result in large scale ecological benefits."
Student: Jo Gallager
Course: MLA (Y5)
Tutors: Nigel Dunnett, Fiona McQuaid and Elisa Olivares
Porter Brook Park: Out From Under by Kathryn Inskip
"Sheffield's rivers work as ecological corridors. However, the 3.5 hectare site is currently ecologically isolated, with a lack of vegetation and a culvert, making it challenging for wildlife to thrive here.
"The vision for the regeneration of this site is to create a resilient and flexible green space reconnecting Sheffield City Centre with the Porter Brook.
"The new site-sensitive design will improve nature connectedness, mitigate flood risk and increase biodiversity.
"The local community consists of a mix of students and young professionals, who will benefit from this proposed playful landscape that encourages immersion in a riparian planting."
Student: Kathryn Inskip
Course: MLA (Y5)
Tutors: Tom Wild and Ross Cameron
Friarwood; Artists Studios and Gardens by Madeleine Benyon
"Friarwood Art Studios, an 1880s Grade II listed dispensary building, has been retrofitted as part of a wider scheme to revitalise Pontefract as a hub for creativity and making.
"The studios and gardens provide space for local artists, fostering creativity and encouraging interaction between locals, hospital patients and visitors.
"The design places a strong emphasis on circularity and sustainability, as well as building resilience against climate change.
"The project is explored at different scales from urban strategic planning to detailed design."
Student: Madeleine Benyon
Course: BA Architecture and Landscape (Y3)
Tutors: Jono Daniels, Russell Light, Laurence Pattacini and Joanne Phillips
Matilda Street Sanctuary Project by Enya Jacobson, Nic Lynch, Genna Williams and Anna Yates
"The Matilda Street area is a currently underused but potentially vibrant area within the heart of Sheffield's cultural quarter.
"Successful design of shared places demands innovative thinking to respond to shifting contexts and actions in a world of increasing complexity and diversity.
"The module focused on approaches for generating original site-specific concepts and resolving these at a range of planning and design scales.
"Team Organica explored the issues associated with migration and created a design response that welcomes and celebrates diversity and inclusion within the urban environment.
"This group won the Rosie Reynold's creative design Award 2026."
Students: Enya Jacobson, Nic Lynch, Genna Williams and Anna Yates
Course: MLA (Y2)
Tutors: Jess Bryne-Daniel, Thom White, Catherine Higham and Charlie Young
Sustainable Communities: Retrofitting Flood Mitigation and Community Resilience by Porter Brown
"This project, as part of a specific module, explores the relationship between people and landscape, introducing the theories and practices that underpin sustainable communities.
"Focusing on residential landscapes, students, such as Brown, investigated how planning, design and management can respond to users' needs, aspirations and lived experiences.
"Through literature reviews, case study analysis and the development of design guidance, students examined themes, including social interaction, inclusion, health and wellbeing, and environmental resilience.
"The research culminated in a professional report and poster that demonstrated how evidence-based landscape design can support more equitable, healthy and sustainable residential communities."
Student: Porter Brown
Course: MLA (Y3)
Tutors: Aimee Felstead and Emma Beaumont
Belfast after the Walls by Kyle Craig
"This project's design strategies respond to movement, ecology and transition across the site.
"Spatial movement is informed by the fragmented patterns of Belfast's peace walls alongside the fluid patterns of movement within a murmuration of starlings, creating a hierarchy of routes throughout the site, including formal, informal, hard- and soft-scape.
"Existing vegetation is retained as an ecological core, with proposed planting and habitat typologies emerging outwards as a gradual gradient.
"Desire lines are proposed to be mown regularly as part of a responsive management plan that is informed by movement through the landscape as the vegetation establishes."
Student: Kyle Craig
Course: MLA (Y5)
Tutors: Nigel Dunnett, Fiona McQuaid and Elisa Olivares
A City Learning to Breathe with the Tide: A Sea-Level Rise Adaptation Strategy for Hull by Hui Zhang
"While hard engineering solutions can provide protection, they are not a permanent, adaptable solution and have physical limits.
"The vision for the project is to create an estuarine entrance that provides a living environment sharing tidal rhythms, ecological and civic lives, moving away from the focus on the flood danger to welcome a breathing, changeable landscape.
"The proposed interconnected water system makes space for the seawater intrusion and allows for a more resilient living environment.
"Fluidity is privileged above rigidity, the strong identity of the River Hull is respected, and changes over time are celebrated."
Student: Hui Zhang
Course: MA Landscape Architecture
Tutors: Jess Bryne-Daniel and Laurence Pattacini
Partnership content
This school show is a partnership between Dezeen and the University of Sheffield. Find out more about Dezeen partnership content here.