Adaptive Grounds - Retrofitting urban greenspaces through a modular ‘plug-in’ design typology for enhancing accessibility.

This research explores how a typology of modular landscape structures might retrofit and enhance existing urban greenspaces. Utilising a research-through-design methodology, the project investigates how adaptable, prefabricated interventions could be designed to respond to specific physical and psychological barriers facing individuals with mobility impairments. The thesis combines digital and physical modelling, fieldwork, and iterative design experiments to develop a typology of lightweight and low-impact structures which are sensitive to site context. Prefabricated modular design is positioned not only as a response to accessibility challenges but as a broader strategy for rethinking how landscape architecture could employ systems that are adaptable, non-permanent, and trailable. The resulting designs work with rather than against existing site conditions, offering a flexible means of enhancing spatial experience within rigid landscape environments.