Dear Jury members, dear Landezine community: Our contribution to the LILA 11 Awards enters the “Other” section not merely as a category, but as a deliberate territory for research and experimentation. It is a space where we believe the future practices of landscape architecture can be glimpsed, tested, and shared. We observe a profound and problematic scarcity of research-driven exhibitions dedicated to the critical practice of landscape; this project is our direct contribution to addressing that void.

Reimagining the Designer as “Guardian”

Emerging from the paradox of water’s disappearance from everyday awareness, even as floods and droughts intensify, the exhibition repositions water as a sociospatial agent. Rather than advancing technocratic infrastructure, it asks a fundamental question: What does it mean for designers to become “Guardians of Water”?
Initiated in Brussels in 2025 as a cross-territorial conversation between Belgium and India, two contexts where landscape architects are striving to become agents of change, the exhibition acts as a living bridge. The momentum for this project emerged from encounters sparked by an exhibition of our practice, taktyk landscape+, at the CEPT Lilavati Lalbhai Library in Ahmedabad. In India, we encountered practitioners protecting ecological resources whose work remains largely invisible; in Europe, despite committed efforts to repair disrupted water cycles, the recognition of the landscape architect remains too low. Guardians of Water argues that the current water stress emergency is, at its heart, a relational crisis.

Soils, Plants, and Practices as Guardians

The project investigates new imaginaries by inviting guest voices (artists, researchers, and practitioners) through 26 layered tales ranging across Europe, Africa and Asia woven into three interrelated threads of investigation:

Thread 1: Fluid Soils explores the ground as a living, shifting medium. Originating from our Topotype research initiated in 2005, we imagine soil through models and mappings as a dynamic medium, a strategy of exposure. We treat the ground as a liminal record of hydrological processes. In Brussels, our research focuses on the city’s specific clay layers, the deep geological strata where water resists and eventually emerges. By making invisible hydrological behaviour felt again through design research and pilot projects, we transform the relationships between citizens, territories, and governance.

Thread 2: Cloud Forests invites visitors to recognise vegetation not merely as “material”, but as entangled worlds,active guardians. This thread operates through a dual lens: on one side, the protection of fragile, existing forests, illustrated by the research of Divya Shah, which renders visible the elusive entanglements within one of India’s remote sacred groves. On the other, it explores the necessity to develop forest urbanism, employing prospective territorial strategies and built works to empower “landscapes of adaptation”.

Thread 3: Rituals of Care expands design as a relational practice. Opening with the work of Indian visual artist Kakoli Sen, the thread highlights stepwells as sites of collective memory and women’s agency. By positioning our work within the sphere of cultural production and embracing the role of the designer as curator, through art commissions, cultural events, and design biennials, we employ radical observation and critical gardening to investigate how landscape architecture can foster regeneration and collective engagement.

Landscape as the Art of Conversation

In a market often fragmented by competition, we embrace Michel Corajoud’s ethos: landscape is, above all, an “art of conversation.” Guardians of Water serves as a multidisciplinary platform, using our Ahmedabad exhibition as a mirror to reveal what has been silenced within our own European landscapes.This cross-cultural resonance marks the birth of taktyk tropics, an offshoot dedicated to a decolonial approach to landscape. We invite the jury to view this work as an act of resistance against extractive logics; here, the “Guardian” is not a solitary figure, but a collective responsibility built on knowledge-sharing, from the thick clay of Brussels to India’s sacred groves. This journey towards a global, collaborative stewardship culminates in a Birkhäuser publication, to be presented at the IFLA World Congress 2026 in Hong Kong.

Locations: Brussels (Belgium) & Ahmedabad (India)
Editor: Thierry Kandjee, taktyk landscape +
Publisher: Birkhäuser (Forthcoming 2026)
Forewords: Tim Waterman; Devayani Deshmukh Upasani (Indian Society of Landscape Architects)
Guest Authors & Contributors: Sébastien Penfornis (Co-founder), Simon Auperpin, Thania Sakellariou (Partners); Lucine Letassey (Video Artist); Divya Shah (Landscape Researcher); Kakoli Sen (Visual Artist); Jolin Ordelman (Anthropologist).

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