Kongjian Yu Dies in Plane Crash in Brazil
Chinese landscape architect Kongjian Yu, founder of the large Beijing firm Turenscape, was among four people killed in a plane crash in Brazil on Tuesday. The crash happened during the making of a documentary about Yu and his pioneering Sponge City Concept.
Reports of Kongjian Yu's death indicate he was in Brazil working on a documentary film titled Planeta Esponja (Planet Sponge), and the crash happened while flying over the country's famous Pantanal wetlands. The 62-year-old Yu was accompanied in the four-seater plane by Brazilian filmmakers Luiz Ferraz and Rubens Crispim Junior, and the pilot, Marcelo Pereira de Barros, all of who died.
While in Brazil, Yu had also participated in the Sao Paulo International Architecture Biennale and in a conference organized by the Council of Architecture and Urbanism of Brazil in Brasília. In both, he spoke about the Sponge City Concept that he developed upon establishing Turenscape in 1997, in which soft infrastructures, such as constructed wetlands and bioswales, are used in lieu pipes and other conventional engineering solution to conserve and reuse rainwater and restore ecosystems.
The success of the approach—due to Yu's skill as a landscape architect but also his tireless advocacy—led the Chinese government to adopt the Sponge City Concept as national policy in 2013. Subsequent projects, such as the Puyangjiang River Corridor, completed in 2017, have actually seen the undoing of engineered water control measures across China in favor of the soft edges and natural remediation at the heart of Yu's concept. Harldy limited to China, Yu said in an interview last year: “My concept is infinitely scalable. My theory can grow from being a Sponge City to ultimately becoming a Sponge Planet.”
Yu and Turenscape's Sponge City projects have led to many accolades, from nearly annual WAF Landscape of the Year victories to this year's RAIC International Prize. Two years ago, Yu received the second Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Prize, which is given out every two years by The Cultural Landscape Foundation. Charles Birnbaum, president and CEO of TCLF, sent us a statement that says, in part:
“Kongjian Yu was the global champion of the ‘sponge cities’ concept, a global ambassador for the profession of landscape architecture, and a global advocate for addressing the effects of climate change. Kongjian Yu demonstrated that one person can make a difference. Thanks to his unceasing efforts, the ‘sponge cities’ concept was adopted as national policy in China. Leading by example he unequivocally demonstrated how a landscape architect can change the way a major country sees and acts, and inspired a global movement.”
This news is breaking and will be updated as needed. Look for a full obituary on Kongjian Yu next month.