The article discusses the concept of "Sponge Cities," proposed by Kongjian Yu and introduced at the World Economic Forum in Davos. This urban model focuses on transforming large urban areas into porous "sponge" landscapes that absorb and store rainwater, helping mitigate flooding, reduce ambient temperatures, and promote new vegetation growth. Yu criticizes traditional urban models reliant on impermeable concrete structures, advocating for green infrastructures and porous soils as a sustainable ...

Learn how sponge cities can be used in Brazil by reading our conversation with Kongjian Yu, the Chinese architect who created this concept.

Chinese landscape architect who created the concept visits the country and bets: here a global benchmark could emerge in the fight against “gray infrastructure”. Less costly than channeling rivers and building walls to fight against floods, this proposal could be achieved through master plans and minimum intervention.

Brazil can become a reference in adapting cities with nature-based solutions but the country must develop an action plan and create partnerships so that projects can get off the drawing board. The recommendation was made by award-winning Chinese landscape architect Kongjian Yu, the creator of the sponge-city concept and a professor at the Peking University.

As Brazilians continue to watch in disbelief the aftermath of the April and May storms in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil welcomed the visit of Chinese architect and landscape designer Kongjian Yu, creator of the sponge city concept, which leverages nature itself to better withstand the increasing occurrence of storms.

How to protect cities, which house the majority of the planet's population, from the extreme weather events predicted to increase in number and intensity due to global warming? From China, an answer to water-related challenges—whether excess or scarcity—comes with the suggestive name of sponge city. A local government program based on this concept was launched at the end of 2014, following major floods that had hit Beijing, the Chinese capital, two years earlier. One of its goals was to locally ...

At a time when Brazilians still watch, almost incredulously, the consequences caused by the storms in April and May in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil received a visit from the Chinese architect and landscape designer Kongjian Yu, creator of the sponge city concept. This concept utilizes nature itself to better withstand the increasing occurrence of storms.

In this context, the work of Beijing-based architect Kongjian Yu, founder of the landscape architecture firm Turenscape, has gained international visibility and recognition, which included receiving the 2023 Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Prize (“Oberlander Prize”). His "sponge cities" concept, designed to address and prevent urban flooding in the face of accelerated climate change, was adopted as national policy in China in 2013. This approach prioritizes large-sc...

Professor Kongjian Yu, “the sponge cities architect’ explains it like this: “We can make friends with floods. We can make friends with water.” This is done by increasing the number of green spaces in a city and letting such spaces act as natural flood absorbers. On a micro level, these include rain gardens — depressed areas in the landscape that collects rain water from a roof, driveway or street and allows it to soak into the ground. These can be planted with grass or flowering plants or even s...