Key details
Ms Alexis (Xiaotong) Liu
Lecturer in Landscape Architecture and Urbanism
Alexis Liu is a designer, researcher, and lecturer working across the fields of Landscape Architecture, Urbanism and Narrative Environments. She graduated with an MLA from RMIT University in 2016. She worked as a landscape architect at Aspect Studios and a lecturer in narrative environment design at SIVA. She is currently a lecturer at the University of Greenwich, focusing on developing, planning, and delivering courses across the BA Hons, MLA, MA, MSc Landscape Architecture, Urbanism and Urban Design, and MArch Architecture programmes. Her research has been focusing on post-disaster landscape research since college. It has gradually shifted to studying environmental identity for catastrophic landscapes and marginalised groups using techniques such as the combination grasshopper, python and Geographical Information System (GIS). In 2019, she began her Landscape Urbanism PhD study at the University of Greenwich. Since then, her research interests have focused on the relationships and changes between urban and rural-urban fringe areas during urbanisation process. She is fascinated by how urbanisation gradually influences the identity of rural-urban fringe areas.
Responsibilities within the university
- Coordinate and teach courses across the BA, MA, MLA and MSc Landscape Architecture, Urbanism and Urban Design programmes.
- Developing high-quality research projects and programmes in the field of landscape architecture and urbanism and enhancing student experience.
- Contribute to the School public engagement, network and international profile.
Awards
- 3rd Prize in the “YUAN YE AWARD” International Landscape Architecture Graduate Student Design 2016
- The Excellent Design Award, Suzhou University of Science and Technology 2014
- Bronze Prize in the 3rd “Idea-King” International Landscape Design 2013
- Second prize and selected project for implementation plan in “The sky farm” design competition, 2013
Recognition
- Academic member of The Landscape Institute.
Research / Scholarly interests
My current research investigates an approach to exploring an area of intersecting edges, including estuarial rivers, forestry, agricultural fields, global city, suburban settlements, and port developments. The research explores the role and cultural identity of an area of South-East England, where the limits of London, the floodplain of the Thames, the Greenbelt, industry, agriculture, and residential settlements come together – impacted by changing dynamics of urbanisation. Employing a combination of methods, the research combines mapping (GIS and document surveys), observation, interview and visual analysis. The research discusses the need for such a range of methods, brought together in different ways, to investigate the relations between changing patterns of urbanisation through planning, the impact and threat of flooding, localised development and land use, and the cultural forms of the landscape.
- Relationships between the urbanisation process and rural-urban fringes (peripheries)
- Contested conflicts in rural-urban fringes
- The inequalities between cities, and rural-urban fringes
- Post-disaster landscape design
Media activity
Website: www.seedenergy-studio.com
Recent publications
- Liu, A. and Wall, E. 2023. Unsettled peripheries. In: Journal of Landscape Architecture. Oxon: Routledge (Upcoming 2023)
- Liu, A (Co-editor). 2023. Supra Scalar, In Testing Ground, Issue 4
- Liu, A (Co-editor). 2022. Youthhood, In Testing Ground, Issue 3
- Liu, A. and Wall, E. 2021. Experimental studio ecologies: A productive throwntogetherness in Keane, B. and Monacella, R. 2021. Studio Ecologies: Designing landscape Architectural Education for unpredictable futures. Routledge (to be published).
Presentations
- ECLAS Conference, ‘Scale of changes’, Slovenia, September 2022
- Kingston University Research Festival, London, June 2022
- IFLA World Congress ‘Re- public’, South Korea, 2022
- PhD Colloquium, School of Design, 2022
- ECLAS Doctoral Colloquium, ‘Stop and Think’, Uppsala, Sweden 2021
- ECLAS Conference Professionals, ‘Stop and Think’, Uppsala, Sweden 2021
- IFLA World Congress ‘Future Tense’, Penang, Malaysia 2021
- REVISIONING PERI-URBAN FUTURES International Conference, 2021
- PhD Colloquium, School of Design, Greenwich, London, 2020