2019 ASLA|Kongjian YU: Sponge City Action Now!

Join us for three fast-paced, powerful talks from landscape architects doing inspiring work around the world to address the urgent challenges facing vulnerable communities in the era of climate change. Acclaimed science and environmental reporter and author Andrew Revkin will moderate.

Kongjian Yu, FASLA, founded the College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture at Peking University and Turenscape, the first private firm of its kind in China. The firm’s forward-thinking research on “ecological security patterns” and “sponge cities” has been adopted by the Chinese government as the guiding theory for national land use planning. Yu has won numerous international awards for his ecologically and culturally sensitive projects, including several ASLA Awards of Excellence and Honor Awards.

Kotchakorn Voraakhom, ASLA, is a landscape architect who works on building productive green public space that tackles climate change in sinking cities. Her favorite childhood activity—boat paddling in floodwaters—would later become a catastrophic disaster for her hometown of Bangkok, Thailand. To save her city from rising sea levels, Voraakhom founded the firm Landprocess and the Porous City Network, a social enterprise working to increase urban resilience across Southeast Asia. Voraakhom is a TED Fellow, Echoing Green Climate Fellow, and Atlantic Fellow.

Hitesh Mehta, FASLA, has worked in more than 60 countries on six continents, including some of the most remote places in the world. National Geographic identified Mehta as a pioneer of sustainable tourism, and the United Nations awarded him the Outstanding Achievement Award for his work alleviating poverty and protecting sensitive ecosystems. Mehta founded HM Design, a holistic practice, in Nairobi, Kenya, in 1990. He is a Fellow of the Architectural Association of Kenya (AAK).