Sponge City: Healing the Planet

Celebrating Olmsted

Urban Resilience

Sponge City

The godfather of the "sponge cities" concept is Peking University landscape architecture professor Yu Kongjian, who almost drowned in a flooded river as a child, but managed to pull himself to safety by grabbing hold of the willow branches and reeds that fringed its banks. In 2013, as an urban designer, he proposed that cities use nature rather than concrete to slow down heavy rain – an idea now being implemented in cities across China and gaining attention around the world.

Professor Kongjian Yu is the founder and principal designer of Turenscape, which Fast Company named one of the 10 Most Innovative Architecture Companies of 2021 for its work in “balancing China’s hyperspeed urbanisation with green sponge cities”. An often-outspoken voice in the world of landscape architecture and urbanism, Professor Yu has been heralded by Michael Sorkin as “a hero of effective advocacy within a system fraught with perils.”

1.Project Statement The project adopts the theory of "sponge city" to restore the damaged ecosystem in the site, especially the wetland system, and applies low-impact development technology to design the site as an urban stormwater wetland corridor. The design effectively alleviates surrounding urban inundation, improves over-ground water quality, restores the stormwater management and ecological self-purification functions of the green space. The project also provides an urban public o...

1.Project Statement The project adopts the theory of "sponge city" to restore the damaged ecosystem in the site, especially the wetland system, and applies low-impact development technology to design the site as an urban stormwater wetland corridor. The design effectively alleviates surrounding urban inundation, improves over-ground water quality, restores the stormwater management and ecological self-purification functions of the green space. The project also provides an urban public o...

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The effects of global climate change are likely to worsen an already fragile environment. The predicted more frequent extreme weather conditions can be expected to cause devastating damage to vulnerable African populations as severe floods, drought, and disease threaten people's survival and security. The conventional and expensive, irreversible grey infrastructure that supports development in the Global North is unlikely to adapt to the extreme climate situations that many African cities face. ...