Season 2 was graced by guests from different parts of the world who offered diverging — sometimes converging — views of a sustainable future.

Herbert Dreiseitl is an award-winning landscape architect, based in Germany. Known for his approach to blue infrastructure, which integrates hydrology with urban planning, he talked about why water is an asset to urbanism.

Landscape architect Kotchakorn Voraakhom is also preoccupied with water and the city. Based in Bangkok, Thailand, a megacity with annual floods and sinking ground, Kotch — as she likes to be called — discussed water as a risk. For her, design is foremost an act of mitigation.

Kotchakorn Voraakhom’s firm LANDPROCESS fitted the Chulalongkorn University Centenary Park in Bangkok, Thailand, with a detention activity lawn that holds water during storm events.
© LANDPROCESS

Bill Browning, the US-based expert at the forefront of biophilic thinking, examined our desire to be close to nature, despite the risks. Nature, he says, is a force that shapes the landscape of the human mind.

South African Chrisna du Plessis and American Bill Reed, both leaders in regenerative design, agree with Bill. They weighed in on nature-centric architecture, singling out the world’s most biophilic hospital, Singapore’s Khoo Teck Puat, as a case in point.

The rooftop community farm at the Khoo Teck Puat Hospital in Singapore fosters strong ties between the institution and its neighbourhood.
© Khoo Teck Puat Hospital

Shifting from ‘why’ to ‘how’ we design, Alyssa-Amor Gibbons, a young architect from Barbados, reviewed the digital tools and performance modelling.

Her approach is different from Daliana Suryawinata and Florian Heinzelmann of SHAU in Indonesia, two seasoned architects who championed the craft and micro-details of construction.

SHAU’s Microlibrary Bima in Bandung, Indonesia, has a façade built from discarded ice cream cups.
© SANROK Studio

In several other episodes this last season, the conversation zoomed out to the ecosystem of ideas and attitudes that shape how we act.

Gregers Reimann, an environmental design consultant based in Malaysia, reflected on his role as an influencer on social media, where he encourages the public to cycle to work.

Ashok Lall, a veteran architect from India, appraised the industry norms that decide and constrain what gets built. He believes that architecture graduates today are simply not prepared for the complexities of the real world.

Prasoon Kumar, the architect-entrepreneur who founded BillionBricks, chipped in on the training of architects. Schools of design, he argues, dampen curiosity and discourage risk-taking.

Returning guests Richard Hassell and Wong Mun Summ also addressed the education system. In the final episode of season 2, the co-founding directors of WOHA in Singapore have made a case for better ways to teach integration, one that would lead to a new union of form and performance.