Introduction: Designing for Uncertainty
In an era defined by climate crisis, population changes, environmental breakdown, and political instability, the traditional urban “masterplan” feels outdated (Marshall & Caliskan, 2011; UN-Habitat, 2020). Cities are no longer fixed systems to be mapped and controlled. Instead, they are flexible, messy, and responsive, much like the ecosystems they often disturb (Waldheim, 2016). Therefore, this paper explores how landscape urbanism—once a side theory—now offers a strong alternative to rigid planning. Rather than forcing structure, it accepts complexity, change, and liminality, presenting space as a living system that is always shifting (Corner, 2006; Yu, 2009).
Toward an ‘Unmasterplanned’ Future
To be “unmasterplanned” does not mean rejecting design. Rather, it means rethinking it: planning becomes flexible instead of strict, and open-ended instead of final. It avoids locking in land use or physical form decades in advance. Instead, it supports design strategies that can handle different types of uncertainty—social, ecological, and technological (Marshall & Caliskan, 2011).
For instance, this includes:
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Streetscapes that adapt to climate and transport changes
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Parks that grow with community needs
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Stormwater areas that also serve as public spaces
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Open-ended plans that welcome future design voices
As Corner (2006) explains, “the landscape medium is uniquely suited to the complexities of contemporary urbanism because of its capacity to operate across spatial, temporal, and programmatic dimensions.”
By letting go of total control, we gain a more generous way of designing—one rooted in care, flexibility, and resilience.
Literature Review
Landscape Urbanism and the Shift from Form to Process
Landscape urbanism has grown from a minor theory into a key idea in urban design today. Thinkers like Corner (2006) and Waldheim (2016) argue that we must move away from fixed, shape-based planning. Instead, they suggest we adopt design approaches that focus on change, systems, and time. This idea goes against the strict zoning and geometric designs of 20th-century planning. It calls for methods that welcome complexity, long-term thinking, and ecological links.
Moreover, Ahern (2011) says resilient urban systems need a “safe-to-fail” approach. This fits well with landscape urbanism’s focus on change, surprise, and learning. It sees the urban landscape not as something finished, but as a living, evolving system—one that can adjust, grow, and organise itself over time.
Streetscapes and Adaptive Micro-Urbanism
At the micro-urban scale, landscape urbanism redefines streets, plazas, and edge conditions as adaptive systems. A curb may evolve into a bench. A bioswale may double as habitat. Modular paving and sensor-based infrastructure introduce temporality and flexibility (Ahern, 2011). These spaces are no longer static objects. Instead, they are platforms for continuous transformation:
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The street becomes a canvas for movement and interaction.
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The park becomes a starting point, not a final product.
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Public space becomes iterative, rather than prescriptive.
This perspective aligns with resilience thinking, where adaptability and feedback loops are prioritized over rigid, top-down control mechanisms (Ahern, 2011; Andersson et al., 2019).
Design as Curation, Not Control
Traditional masterplanning imposes order—fixing land use, delineating function, and assuming predictability. Landscape urbanism, by contrast, curates space as a medium for cultural, ecological, and social narratives. It recognises the political dimensions of landscape, especially in its capacity to address water management, ecological repair, and social inequality (Waldheim, 2016; Yu, 2009).
Curated, open-ended systems reflect this shift:
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Change, decay, and succession are designed into the landscape.
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Temporality and seasonality are embraced.
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Natural systems such as water, vegetation, and wind are integrated—not resisted.
Liminal Landscapes: Between Ecology and Memory
Some of the most transformative contemporary urban landscapes emerge in liminal or edge spaces. These include floodplains, post-industrial sites, and marginal ecologies. They represent thresholds between urban and natural systems, presence and absence, utility and memory.
Examples include:
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Freshkills Park in New York, a post-landfill landscape designed for ecological restoration over generations (Corner, 2006).
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Superkilen in Copenhagen, which reflects cultural hybridity through fragmented landscape elements (Birkeland, 2008).
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Moonee Ponds Creek and the Yarra River in Melbourne, where engineered corridors are reimagined as ecological and cultural infrastructure (Victorian Environmental Water Holder, 2020).
These projects show that landscape is not merely aesthetic. It is performative, narrative, and open to interpretation.
Designing with Liminality
The concept of liminality, derived from anthropological theory (Turner, 1969; Thomassen, 2014), offers valuable insight for urban design. It refers to spaces or periods of transition—moments when structures dissolve and new meanings emerge. In design, liminality can foster public engagement, support grieving and healing, and allow space to evolve with its users.
Designing with liminality means:
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Accepting impermanence as part of urban life.
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Allowing communities to co-author spatial meaning.
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Designing for rituals, memory, and transformation—especially in cemetery or memorial landscapes.
Landscape urbanism provides the tools to support this: topography as narrative, hydrology as heritage, planting as protest, and phasing as empowerment (Corner, 2006; Ahern, 2011).
From Masterplans to Adaptive Frameworks
In a context shaped by climate volatility and urban uncertainty, design must shift. It must move from prescriptive masterplans to flexible frameworks. These systems should respond to change, support ecological resilience, and evolve through feedback and co-design (Marshall & Caliskan, 2011; Andersson et al., 2019).
This is especially relevant in:
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Urban regeneration and post-industrial landscapes
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Nature-based infrastructure and water-sensitive urban design
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Decarbonisation strategies using green systems
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Cemetery and memorial landscapes
Design is no longer just about creating form. It is about listening, negotiating, and regenerating.
Data Collection and Analysis
This research employs a qualitative case study methodology. It draws on four urban landscapes that exemplify adaptive, ecological, and liminal design principles. Each case was selected for its departure from rigid masterplanning. Instead, these cases favor open-ended, performance-based, and socially responsive frameworks. Data sources include planning documents, scholarly analyses, and site observations (Stake, 1995; Flyvbjerg, 2006).
Case Studies:
These case studies collectively explore how landscape-led design addresses uncertainty, ecological processes, and cultural change across different geographies and typologies.
1. Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord, Germany
Designed by Latz + Partner, this transformation of a former steelworks site in the Ruhr Valley rejects erasure. Instead, it favors integration. Industrial relics remain embedded within the landscape. They foster layered narratives of memory, use, and ecology. Key interventions—like converting gas tanks into diving pools or preserving spontaneous vegetation—demonstrate a framework approach rather than a fixed design (Latz, 2001). The park’s unfinished quality invites ongoing reinterpretation. It embodies the principles of “unmasterplanned” design.
Figure 2: Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord: Rehabilitation Program (Source: Pictory)
2. Green Square, Sydney, Australia
Green Square is a major urban renewal initiative guided by landscape-first logic. Rather than a rigid blueprint, designers prioritised hydrological performance and climate resilience. Features such as “The Drying Green,” stormwater plazas, and adaptable public spaces were included (City of Sydney, 2020). The district exemplifies performance-based urbanism. Here, parklands are multifunctional and infrastructure is responsive to environmental and social change.
3. Emscher Landscape Park, Ruhr Region
Spanning multiple municipalities, this park reclaims post-industrial floodplains and contaminated sites. It uses ecologically informed public space design. Seasonal flooding, successional planting, and edge conditions are not eliminated. Instead, they are integrated as design elements. This reflects a liminal and adaptive urbanism (Shannon, 2008). The project reimagines degraded spaces as evolving systems. It embraces disturbance and unpredictability rather than attempting control.
Figure 3: Emscher Landscape Park: Rehabilitation Program (Source: Pictory)
4. Melbourne General Cemetery
A compelling example of the “unmasterplanned” ethos is Project Cultivate at Melbourne General Cemetery. This landscape-led intervention by the Southern Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust (SMCT) breaks from rigid masterplanning. It introduces native grasses into the cemetery’s oldest sections—without imposing predetermined layouts or prescriptive designs.
SMCT instead adopts an adaptive, iterative framework. It responds to evolving community values, ecological dynamics, and cultural practices. The cemetery becomes a multifunctional civic landscape. It fosters biodiversity, creates habitat corridors, reduces urban heat, and supports diverse modes of ritual and reflection.
Central to this strategy is the use of native grasslands. These enhance ecological resilience, support native fauna and flora, and provide habitat connectivity. They also cool the landscape through evapotranspiration and contribute to stormwater management, aligning with water-sensitive urban design (WSUD) principles.
By foregrounding temporality, ecology, and co-authorship, Project Cultivate illustrates key tenets of landscape urbanism (Waldheim, 2016; Ahern, 2011; Andersson et al., 2019). It invites community participation in stewardship. It reframes heritage not as static preservation, but as a living, evolving system.
Project Cultivate shows that even traditionally static spaces—like cemeteries—can function as regenerative ecosystems. It offers a model for heritage landscapes facing climate, biodiversity, and cultural inclusion challenges. This demonstrates the power of landscape-led, unmasterplanned design to reconcile past, present, and future needs.
Figure 4: Melbourne General Cemetery (Source: Meso Space)
Discussion: The Logic of the Unmasterplanned
The notion of the “unmasterplanned” resists the illusion of comprehensive control in spatial planning. It does not abandon design. Instead, it reframes design as an adaptive, open-ended process. This approach aligns with systems thinking and post-structural urbanism (Marshall & Caliskan, 2011; Waldheim, 2016).
Landscapes in this paradigm are not static artefacts. They are performative systems shaped by time, ecology, and human agency. This reflects a broader epistemological shift. We move from deterministic masterplanning to frameworks that accommodate uncertainty—social, ecological, or technological (Ahern, 2011). Design becomes anticipatory. It treats climate variability, demographic change, and technologies like sensor-based infrastructure as design conditions—not disruptions.
Key features of unmasterplanned design include:
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Integration of decay and change as spatial logics
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Temporal adaptability across programmatic and infrastructural dimensions
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Pluralistic responsiveness to cultural and ecological diversity
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Participatory flexibility, enabling iterative use and co-authorship
Case studies such as Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord and Emscher Landscape Park illustrate this approach. These projects reuse post-industrial terrains through ecological regeneration, not erasure (Latz, 2001; Shannon, 2008). Similarly, Green Square in Sydney reveals a performance-based model shaped by hydrology and climate adaptation—not fixed typologies (City of Sydney, 2020).
At the micro scale, adaptive streetscapes and liminal conditions invite soft interventions. Curbs evolve into seating. Bioswales serve as habitat. These strategies reflect resilience theory’s emphasis on redundancy, modularity, and feedback (Andersson et al., 2019). They also position public space as cultural infrastructure—functional, expressive, and temporal (Thomassen, 2014; Turner, 1969).
The unmasterplanned is inherently political. It challenges dominant spatial narratives. It embraces urban uncertainty as a design asset. This is especially important in contested landscapes—such as memorial parks—where social meaning, ecology, and culture must co-exist (GMCT, 2023).
Conclusion: From Control to Curation
In an age defined by volatility, landscape and urban design must evolve. Deterministic planning and the masterplan no longer serve contemporary needs. Instead, adaptive frameworks offer a more resilient and inclusive path. These frameworks foreground systems over objects, relations over forms, and process over permanence.
Designing with wisdom requires more than technical skill. It demands ethical and ecological imagination. Uncertainty is not merely a risk. It is a potential to be designed with (Yu, 2009; Waldheim, 2016).
Landscape urbanism does not offer prescriptive answers. It provides a relational and temporal toolkit. Change, memory, and participation become central to design. The question is not only what we build, but how we frame space to evolve and support emergent conditions.
In this shift, we move from masterplanning to frameworking. We trade control for curation. We move from finality to continual adaptation. Design becomes a practice of negotiation and regeneration—attuned to both ecosystems and human needs.