Christopher Fettke von Koeckritz

Education

The Oslo School of Architecture and Design, Master of Landscape Architecture
The University of Delaware, Bachelor of Landscape Architecture

Biography

Christopher began studying Marine Science and Fine Art at the University of Delaware in the World Scholars Program. Curious to connect the two fields, he switched to landscape architecture and later joined the Coastal Resilience Design Studio (CRDS), an interdisciplinary studio in partnership with the Delaware Sea Grant. The work explored concepts of sediment management, living shorelines, tidal marsh restoration, place-specific practices to adopt coastal adaptation, and community vitality plans for coastal communities in Delaware and Virginia.

His academic interests have extended to Arctic Alaska, where he investigated how landfast sea-ice loss and landscape change affect the community of Kotzebue. During his graduate studies in Norway, he expanded his focus to landscapes in crisis (e.g., wartime and environmental disasters) and to scenario-making to design resilient plans addressing water, agriculture, migration of people affected by war, and the role landscape architects can offer. His diploma thesis, A Method to Determine Ecocide from a Landscape Perspective: the Russian-Ukraine War, investigates the destruction of Ukraine’s Nova Kakhovka Dam and develops a method to assess the possible fifth prosecutable crime under the International Criminal Court: ecocide. 

Christopher was always interested in water and change. So, he joined the Natural Infrastructure Lab (NIL) as a Design Researcher in 2026. As climate change and other anthropogenic activities threaten coastal landscapes, he explores novel nature-based interventions with the NIL team at UVA to help mitigate these challenges.