Dr. Yazid Ninsalam
Details
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Department: School of AUD
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Campus: City Campus Australia
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yazid.ninsalam@rmit.edu.au
Open to
- Media enquiries
- Masters Research or PhD student supervision
- Collaborative projects
- Industry Projects
- Join a web conference as a panellist or speaker
- Career advice
About
Yazid is the Associate Dean of Landscape Architecture at RMIT, where he leads with a focus on design, research, and how landscapes shape—and are shaped by—people, place, and climate. His work explores the deeper question of how space holds meaning, especially in cities under pressure from development and environmental change.
Yazid’s research brings together design thinking, environmental systems, and digital tools to tackle big questions: Who gets access to land? How do we design for inclusion? What does resilience look like at the scale of the everyday? He’s particularly interested in the in-between spaces—the ones we often overlook—but where belonging, care, and connection really play out.
Yazid worked as Associate Director and Global Discipline Lead at McGregor Coxall, where he led the Biourbanism Lab team across Melbourne, Sydney, Bristol, and London. He’s also worked with Singapore’s National Parks Board and served on the council of the Singapore Institute of Landscape Architects. He holds a PhD in Architecture from the National University of Singapore and was a researcher at the Future Cities Laboratory, a collaboration between ETH Zurich and Singapore’s National Research Foundation.
His work has been shared across exhibitions and conferences in places like Rotterdam, Munich, Zurich, Melbourne, Singapore, and Jakarta. His published writings appear in The Routledge Book of Teaching Landscape Architecture, the Journal of Digital Landscape Architecture (JoDLA), the Journal of Landscape Architecture (JOLA), the International Journal of Architectural Computing (IJAC), Computer-Aided Architectural Design Research in Asia (CAADRIA), Sustainable Cities and Society, Journal of the American Water Resources Association (JAWRA), KERB Journal of Landscape Architecture, and the Archives of the International Society of Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Sciences (ISPRS).
At the heart of Yazid’s work is a simple idea: landscapes aren’t just spaces—they’re systems of care, memory, and potential. Through research, teaching, and collaboration, he’s interested in how we design places that reflect the complexity of the people who live in them.
Research fields
- 330109 Landscape architecture
- 3304 Urban and regional planning
- 401302 Geospatial information systems and geospatial data modelling
- 370201 Climate change processes
- 410404 Environmental management
- 330199 Architecture not elsewhere classified
UN sustainable development goals
- 11 Sustainable Cities and Communities
- 13 Climate Action
- 6 Clean Water and Sanitation
- 1 No Poverty
- 4 Quality Education
- 10 Reduced Inequalities
- 16 Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
- 17 Partnerships for the Goals
Academic positions
- Dissertation Tutor
- National University of Singapore
- Landscape Architecture
- Singapore, Singapore
- 2022 – 2023
- Doctoral Researcher
- Singapore-ETH Centre
- Singapore, Singapore
- 2012 – 2016
Non-academic positions
- Global Discipline Lead and Associate Director
- McGregor Coxall
- , Australia
- 2022 – 2024
- Geospatial Environmental Designer
- McGregor Coxall
- , Australia
- 2021 – 2022
- Landscape Architect
- National Parks Board
- Singapore, Singapore
- 2016 – 2017
Degrees
- Ph.D, Architecture and Urban Environment
- National University of Singapore
- Singapore
- 2012 – 2017
Supervisor projects
- Landscape Urbanism as a Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction
- 21 Feb 2022
- Design Response to Applying Nature-based Solutions for Integrated Urban Water Management in Lower Mekong Region.
- 21 Feb 2022
- Restoring Singapore's food collective actualization through regenerative agrarian dynamics
- 13 Jul 2021
- Nature-based Alternative-water Treatment Landscapes in New Urban Fringe Development
- 13 Aug 2020
Teaching interests
Yazid’s teaching is grounded in the belief that landscape architecture education must be both critical and applied—equipping students not only with technical skills but with the capacity to navigate the social, cultural, and environmental complexities of contemporary practice. His teaching spans undergraduate and postgraduate levels, where he integrates fieldwork, digital tools, and design research into immersive learning experiences. Whether guiding studios on post-disaster resilience, urban transformation, or ecological infrastructure, Yazid brings students into close contact with real-world contexts—locally and internationally—through partnerships with government, industry, and community stakeholders.
He has led and coordinated a range of design studios and core courses at RMIT including Environments 4, Communications 1 and 2, and MLA Research Seminars, Studios, and Project A and B. His teaching draws from a wide palette of methods—live projects, mapping, fabrication, and critical theory—helping students understand landscape not just as a surface to be shaped, but as a system of relationships, histories, and futures.
Yazid’s studios often deal with urgent global challenges—from urbanisation and climate change to heritage loss and material extraction—and encourage students to ask difficult questions while experimenting with new forms of spatial representation. Guest speakers from global institutions and cross-cultural field intensives have helped students connect design thinking to larger planetary concerns. At its core, his teaching is about empowering students to become thoughtful, agile, and accountable designers—able to work across disciplines, across cultures, and across scales.
Research interests
Yazid's research explores how landscapes are shaped by—and in turn shape—processes of urbanisation, climate change, and cultural transformation. His work sits at the intersection of design, geospatial technologies, and environmental systems, with a focus on how spatial data and digital tools can inform more just, resilient, and responsive landscape futures.
He is particularly interested in the impacts of land transformation, from informal settlements and post-disaster recovery zones to emerging cities and heritage landscapes. Using a mix of remote sensing, spatial analysis, and close-range photogrammetry digital modelling, his research reveals hidden patterns in how landscapes are occupied, governed, and adapted. This includes projects that integrate LiDAR and drone mapping for flood resilience, AI-based simulations for nature-based solutions, and point cloud workflows to visualise ecological change.
Yazid’s approach is inherently collaborative—working with international organisations, local governments, and communities to ensure that research outcomes are grounded, actionable, and sensitive to place. His work often bridges theory and practice, contributing to both academic knowledge and real-world planning and design strategies.
At its core, his research is driven by a commitment to spatial justice, environmental stewardship, and the belief that landscape is not just a backdrop to human activity, but a living system that reflects our values, decisions, and shared futures.
