Kongjian yu biography sample
Kongjian Yu
In this Chinese name, the family name is Yu.
Kongjian Yu (simplified Chinese: 俞孔坚; traditional Chinese: 俞孔堅; pinyin: Yú kǒngjiān, born in 1963 in Dongyu Village in Jinhua, Zhejiang Province, China), is a landscape architect and urbanist, writer and educator, commonly credited with the invention of Sponge City concept, and winner of the International Federation of Landscape Architects’ Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe Award in 2020. Received his Doctor of Design Degree from Harvard Graduate School of Design in 1995, Doctor Honoris Causa from Sapienza University of Rome in 2017 and Honorary Doctorate from Norwegian University of Life Sciences in 2019, Yu was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2016.
A farmer's son and a strong advocate ecological urbanism, Yu is a founder of the Peking University College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture. He is also founder and principal designer of Turenscape, which Fast Company called one of The 10 Most Innovative Architecture Companies of 2021 for “balancing China's hyperspeed urbanization with green ‘sponge cities’”. An often-outspoken voice in the world of landscape architecture and urbanism, Yu has been heralded by Michael Sorkin as “a hero of effective advocacy within a system fraught with perils”. Several of Yu's core ideas for nature-based climate adaptations and ecological restoration, including the sponge city concept, have been adopted for nationwide implementation by the Chinese government and had a global reach.
Career
Kongjian Yu received his Doctor of Design Degree at The Harvard Graduate School of Design in 1995, with the dissertation, "Security Patterns in Landscape Planning: With a Case in South China" with Carl Steinitz, Richard Forman and Stephen Ervin as his advisors. He worked as landscape planner and architect at SWA Group in Laguna Beach from 1995 to 1997. He has been a professor of urban and regional plann
Landscape Architect and “Sponge City” Guru Kongjian Yu Wins 2023 Oberlander Prize
Kongjian Yu, a Beijing-based landscape architect, author, and academic famed for pioneering a particularly porous approach to urban design that employs large-scale green infrastructure with recreational elements to mitigate flooding accelerated by climate change, is the winner of the second Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Prize. He follows in the footsteps of inaugural Oberlander Prize winner Julie Bargmann of D.I.R.T. Studio, who was honored with the biennial accolade in 2021. Conceived and organized by Washington, D.C.–based nonprofit The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF), the prize is named after the late German-born Canadian landscape architect Cornelia Hahn Oberlander, herself a vanguard in addressing environmental and social concerns in her own celebrated body of work. (Oberlander died at the age of 99 from COVID-19 just months ahead of the presentation of her namesake prize to Bargmann, who is also a past RECORD Women in Architecture Award winner.)
2023 Oberlander Prize laureate Kongjian Yu. Photo by Barrett Doherty, courtesy The Cultural Landscape Foundation
The direct impact that Harvard Graduate School of Design–educated Yu—affectionally dubbed “the Olmsted of China”—has had on landscape architecture, urban planning, and climate resiliency in his native country is formidable. His conceptual framework for “sponge cities” was adopted as a national policy in 2013, and to date more than 70 Chinese cities have realized ultra-absorbent parks as part of the government’s urban flood-curbing-slash-beautification agenda. These landscapes, many incorporating constructed wetlands or reclaimed stretches of formerly industrial waterfront, were created with the shared goal that by the year 2023, 80 percent of cities in China will be able to soak up 70 percent of their rainfall.
Red Ribbon Park, Qinhuangdao Hebei-Province, China (2013). Ph By Kongjian Yu, FASLA The land and water were precious, but the weather could be unpredictable, so we had to design and manage our farm fields wisely, following nature’s cycle and wasting nothing, and adapting in order to make a living. Media Contact: Nord Wennerstrom | T: 202.483.0553 | M: 202.255.7076 | E: nord@tclf.org Biennial prize includes a $100,000 award and two years of public engagement activities October 17, 2023 (Washington, D.C.) – The Cultural Landscape Foundation (“TCLF”) today announced that Beijing-based landscape architect Kongjian Yu is the recipient of the 2023 Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Prize (“Oberlander Prize”). The biennial Oberlander Prize includes a $100,000 award and two years of public engagement activities focused on the laureate’s work and landscape architecture more broadly. Yu is the global champion of the “sponge cities” concept for addressing climate change accelerated urban flooding, which was adopted as national policy in China in 2013. The biennial Oberlander Prize is bestowed on a recipient who is “exceptionally talented, creative, courageous, and visionary” and has “a significant body of built work that exemplifies the art of landscape architecture.” Yu was selected by an international seven-person jury, supported by Oberlander Prize Curator John Beardsley, from more than 300 nominations worldwide. The Oberlander Prize Jury Citation noted of Yu, he is a “brilliant and prolific designer … [who] is also a force for progressive change in landscape architecture around the world.” Yu defines landscape architecture as the art of survival. “He lives and breathes his conviction that landscape architecture is the discipline to lead effective responses to the climate crisis,” said TCLF President & CEO Charles A. Birnbaum, “and his ideas are inspiring planners and decision makers in Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, Denmark, Egypt, England, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Mexico, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Sweden, and elsewhere.” His “sponge cities” concept addresses climate change accelerated urban flooding with large-scale nature-based infrastructure – i
I am honored to be chosen as this year’s recipient of the Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe Award. I would like to extend my sincere thanks to the International Federation of Landscape Architects (IFLA), the members of the nomination committee and the jury, and to everyone else who has made this possible.
It is especially gratifying to be recognized on the 120th anniversary of the birth of the man who established landscape architecture as “the mother of all arts”—Sir Jellicoe himself.
My Roots in the Village
I’d like to begin by talking a bit about my childhood, which ultimately had a profound influence on the way I’ve come to approach my work. I was born to a peasant family in Dong Yu village in southeast China’s Zhejiang Province. The village is located where White Sand Creek and the Wujiang River meet.
I swam in the creek during the summer and caught big fish when the monsoon season came. When I was small, I took care of a water buffalo, which grazed along the waterways and between the paddy fields. There were seven ponds, a patch of sacred forest and two big camphor trees in front of the village, under which many legendary stories about my ancestors were told.
The land was extremely productive. We planted three crops throughout the year, including canola, wheat, buckwheat, rice, sugar cane, peanut, sweet potato, corn, soybeans, carrot, turnip, radish and lotus.
We worshipped the Earth God, Water God, and Yu the Great, the legendary king who knew how to manage water and plan the land. We also worshipped our ancestors, who had the wisdom of adapting to nature and cultivating the land.
In all likelihood, I would have followed in the footsteps of my father, who taught me how to cultivate the land, manage water, and be a pr