Travelling back to Brisbane for family Christmas celebrations via a stopover in Sydney, Julia Watson was delivered directly into the NSW capital's weeks-long smoke haze.

The fires were a reminder that the impacts of a changing climate touched all corners of the globe, from cities to the remote regions the Brisbane-born landscape architect had spent much time in through her work on conservation and significant landscapes.

Ganvie, a town in West Africa's Benin seemingly built on a lake surrounded by a grid of artificial fisheries. Credit:Iwan Baan

Now a New York-based urban design teacher at Harvard and Columbia University, she says one approach to addressing the myriad climate-driven issues facing humans has often been overlooked.

Today’s architects, planners and designers need to more actively consider thousands of years of human ingenuity.