Guardians of Water

This anthology approaches water not as a resource to be managed but as a vital condition shaping territories and cultures. Emerging from the paradox of waters disappearance from everyday awareness even as floods and droughts intensify, the book repositions water as a spatial agent. Rather than advancing technical fixes, it asks a fundamental question: What does it mean for designers to become Guardians of Water? Landscape architecture is reframed as an ethical and political practice grounded in reciprocity and long-term stewardship. Structured in three chapters, Fluid Soils, Cloud Forests, and Rituals of Care, the book presents landscapes as active hydrological and social systems. It challenges extractive logics and technocratic paradigms, demonstrating how landscape architecture can foster regeneration and collective engagement.

Editor Dr. Thierry Kandjee is a landscape architect and the co-founder of Taktyk Landscape+. From 2018 to 2022, he held chair for landscape design at the faculty of architecture La Cambre Horta in Brussels. Among the contributors are Tim Waterman, Professor of Landscape Theory and Acting Director of Architecture History and Theory at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, London; Devayani Deshmukh Upasani, Landscape architect, Honorary Secretary of Indian Society of Landscape Architects; Lucine Letassey, photographer and video artist, Belgium; Jolin Ordelman, anthropologist, The Netherlands; Dr. Thania Sakellariou, architect, urbanist and partner at Taktyk Landscape+; Divya Shah, landscape researcher, India; Dr. Sébastien Penfornis, architect urbanist and co-founder of Taktyk Landscape+; Kakoli Sen, visual artist, India; Simon Auperpin, architect, painter and partner of Taktyk Landscape+.