News & Events

The 43rd International Symposium on Automation and Robotics in Construction (ISARC 2026) was held in Singapore at the National University of Singapore. The event brought together global research and industry discussions on construction automation, robotics, digital construction, lean construction, and smart built environment technologies. SmartScape Design Lab will continue to follow these emerging directions.

SmartScape Design Lab conducted an academic visit to Zhejiang University, engaging with faculty and researchers on shared interests in urban design, landscape architecture, and computational approaches to the built environment. The exchange strengthened collaborative ties between NUS and one of China’s leading design institutions.

Dr. Jinda Qi, Principal Investigator of SmartScape Design Lab, has received an HDB research grant to support research on smart, sustainable, and human-centered approaches to Singapore’s built and residential environments.

SmartScape Design Lab participated in academic seminar with faculty and students from Harbin Institute of Technology during their visit to the National University of Singapore. The seminar provided a platform for academic exchange on climate-responsive public space design, computational urban science, AI-assisted spatial perception, and related approaches to urban and landscape research.

SmartScape Design Lab participated in the NUS Department of Architecture Graduate Research Symposium 2025, held on 14 November 2025 at SDE4, National University of Singapore. The annual symposium provides a platform for PhD students to share their research with the broader scholarly community, welcoming researchers and faculty from institutions across Singapore and beyond.

Dr. Jinda Qi, Principal Investigator of SmartScape Design Lab, participated in the Universitas 21 (U21) Early Career Researcher Workshop 2025, held at the University of Nottingham, UK. The workshop brought together early career researchers from U21 member universities across disciplines for cross-disciplinary collaboration and knowledge exchange.

SmartScape Design Lab presented research at the IFLA World Congress 2025 in Nantes, France. Under the congress theme “Guiding Landscapes,” Dr. Jinda Qi, Principal Investigator of SmartScape Design Lab, shared the study “Development and Validation of 3D Spatial Metrics Using Point Clouds for Landscape Visual Quality Assessment.”

The Principal Investigator of SmartScape Design Lab, Dr. Jinda Qi, has received the 2026 NParks grant as Co-Principal Investigator for a project on human-centric urban thermal comfort perception, greenery, and LiDAR-based environmental measurement in dense cityscapes. The project adopts a human-centric approach to examine how urban greenery influences thermal comfort perception across different land use types, urban forms, and socio-demographic groups in Singapore.

Dr. Jinda Qi, Principal Investigator of SmartScape Design Lab, attended the 9th Annual APRU Sustainable Cities and Landscapes Conference, held at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in Shanghai, China. The conference, themed “Evolutionary Cities and Landscapes in the Pacific Rim,” brought together researchers, practitioners, and policymakers from APRU member universities to advance interdisciplinary dialogue on sustainable urban development, landscape design, and climate-responsive approaches to cities.

Welcome to the MLA design studio review and exchange session, held at the NUS Department of Architecture on 7 March 2025. The session brought together students, tutors, and reviewers for an engaging conversation around landscape architecture, urban environments, and design research. Through the presentation of studio projects, students shared their ideas, site readings, and design strategies, opening up discussions on how landscape design can respond to climate, ecology, public space, and everyday urban life.