This site presents projects across a multitude of topics and locations generally fielded in the design disciplines. I believe most complex problems can be mediated and advanced through design using a wide recognition of development processes and human-environment interactions.
My research and practice focus on scenario-building and filling knowledge gaps for sustainable development, especially in regions that lack adequate knowledge or transparency in development information and spatial data. I apply design methods to land change and landscape ecology, with wide expertise on the manipulation of geospatial data for the study, advocacy, design and delivery of projects in ecologically complex and contested landscapes. Recent works include design guidelines for tropical road infrastructure, corridor modelling for wildlife crossing design, coupling high-resolution remote sensing with historical narratives for novel impact assessment, and interactive geospatial platforms for Myanmar, Laos, and Hong Kong. Key professional works range widely in scale, from new town planning to the winning entry for New York City’s 46,000-acre Gateway National Park. I offer studio and lecture courses on regional landscape planning, landscape media, and GIS and research-based seminars and studios on environmental conservation, modernization and rural development in Hong Kong, China, South and Southeast Asia (Myanmar, Laos), and Latin America. I have coordinated the thesis in landscape architecture at The University of Hong Kong for five years.
Date posted: 04 June 2020
Final-year HKU Bachelor of Arts in Landscape Studies BA(LS) students presented their strategic planning proposals for northern Laos to an international panel of ecologists, sociologists, geographers, activists, and philanthropists, in addition to designers and planners. For their proposals, students each asked difficult questions of development and sustainability practices, including: Challenging impact assessment scope; qualifying the remediation potential of Chi...
www.designforconservation.org/news/studio-laos-2020-final-review
Date posted: 15 February 2020
"Strategic Landscape Planning for the Greater Mekong" builds on six years of design-based experiential learning across mainland Southeast Asia by the Division of Landscape Architecture. This year, focusing on the regional impacts of China's Belt and Road Initiative in northern Laos, students spend one term engaging issues of development vis-à-vis landscape architecture to define problems and produce innovative planning proposals. During this process, students de...
Date posted: 24 August 2019
Thailand and Dawei Special Economic Zone: Road Link to Kilometer Zero Date: 24 August 2019, Time: 13:30, Venue: Multi-function Room, 1st floor, Bangkok Art and Culture Centre. Agenda: Ashley Scott Kelly, Faculty of Architecture, The University of Hong Kong Counter-assessment of impacts and history for the Dawei road link, 1995-2019. Saw Frankie Abreu, Tenasserim River & Indigenous People Network (TRIP NET) and representatives from impacted communities Voices from...
www.designforconservation.org/news/public-forum-on-transborder-dawei-road-link
Date posted: 16 July 2019
WWF releases new report, Nature in peril: The risk to forests and wildlife from the Dawei-Htee Khee Road, which places imminent threats to the ecological connectivity of Dawna-Tenasserim Landscape within a longer two-decade struggle between infrastructure and sustainability. Dawei road project poses risks to threatened species: WWF (Myanmar Times) Download report: Nature in peril: The risk to forests and wildlife from the Dawei-Htee Khee Road This report is the f...
www.designforconservation.org/news/wwf-releases-nature-peril-report
Date posted: 22 January 2019
"Strategic Landscape Planning for the Greater Mekong" builds on five years of design-based experiential learning across mainland Southeast Asia by the Division of Landscape Architecture. This year, focusing on the regional impacts of China's Belt and Road Initiative in northern Laos, students spend one term engaging issues of development vis-à-vis landscape architecture to define problems and produce innovative planning proposals. During this process, students d...
Date posted: 10 December 2018
Master of Landscape Architecture students presented their projects for Environmental Futures Studio: Design, nature and the erosion of conservation in Hong Kong. Jury members included representatives from Hong Kong's Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department, The Nature Conservancy (TNC), Greenpeace, HKU ecologists and land development experts, and local civil society, including Designing Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Wetland Conservation Association. Durin...
www.designforconservation.org/news/environmental-futures-studio-hong-kong
Date posted: 17 October 2018
Duke-Kunshan University, together with Duke University's Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions and Center for International and Global Studies, hosted a conference on Environmental, Geostrategic, and Economic Dimensions of the Silk Road Economic Belt from 12-17 October, 2018. Following two days on economic and policy dimensions, a three-day session called "Developing Spatial Solutions to Environmental Impacts of Infrastructure Development" brought ...
www.designforconservation.org/news/belt-road-workshop-with-duke-university
Date posted: 09 May 2018
Ashley Scott Kelly delivered a talk titled "Critical Linkages" at the "Landscape Connectivity Workshop" hosted by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF-India) in New Delhi on 7-9 May. The three-day event brought together experts from India, Nepal, China, Russia, Mongolia, Bhutan, Myanmar, Cambodia, Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia, Spain and the United States to work with more than 60 representatives from the IUCN, the Global Tiger Forum, governments and international...
www.designforconservation.org/news/landscape-connectivity-workshop
Date posted: 07 May 2018
HKU landscape undergraduates defended their design and regional planning strategies for northern Laos today in front of a cross-disciplinary panel of experts on environmental impact, politics and administration, geography, sociology, architecture and planning. Students and faculty were honored to have Dr. Ng Shui Meng, former Deputy Representative for UNICEF Laos and wife of 2012 disappeared Laos civil society leader Sombath Somphone, join from Vientiane. Students...
