Chinese architect Kongjian Yu dies in plane crash
He was the ideologist of the concept of 'sponge cities', which the Chinese government adopted to combat climate change.
BarcelonaChinese architect Kongjian Yu died Tuesday night in a plane crash in Brazil. The architect, who was 62, rose to prominence as a landscape architect after the Chinese government adopted his concept of sponge cities, using nature-based solutions to absorb and retain water rather than concrete infrastructure to channel it. The architect was traveling on a plane with three other people—two filmmakers and a pilot, about whom no further information has been released—when the plane went out of control during landing near the city of Mato Grosso do Sul and caught fire upon touching down. The Brazilian agency responsible for air safety is investigating the accident
Kongjian Yu was the mastermind of an urban planning model that uses natural landscapes to absorb, preserve, and filter rainwater with the aim of protecting cities from climate change. Instead of trying to slow the flow of water with walls and flood barriers, he proposed building cities that mimic nature, adding green roofs and creating areas that better reuse water. Among his works, he restored the land that now houses the Shenyang University of Architecture campus to its former agricultural character and designed a rice paddy to landscape the campus. This was a low-cost, integrated project that respected the landscape and, since the students themselves cultivated it, was educational.
The architect founded and directed the School of Architecture and Landscape at Peking University. The school mourned his death and, in a statement, said that "many of the projects he led have gained international recognition for their seamless integration of ecological function and artistic expression, offering forward-thinking Chinese solutions and wisdom."
In 1998, Kongjian Yu founded the Beijing-based design firm Turenscape. Since then, he has led the company and was its principal designer, growing it to a team of more than 500 specialists. The architect also served as an advisor to several central and local government agencies in China and had traveled to Brazil to attend an architectural conference in Brasilia and an exhibition in São Paulo, where he showcased solutions to help cities adapt to a changing climate. At the conference, the architect said he saw Brazil as "the last hope for saving the planet."
