Kongjian Yu

Yu was born in 1963 in Dongyu Village, Jinhua, Zhejiang Province, China, into a farming family. Yu earned his Bachelor and Master of Landscape Architecture degrees from Beijing Forestry University. In 1992, he pursued a Doctor of Design (DDes) at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD), completing his dissertation on ecological security patterns in 1995.

At Harvard, he was influenced by scholars Carl Steinitz, Richard Forman, and Ian McHarg. His dissertation was "Security Patterns in Landscape Planning: With a Case in South China".

After returning to China in 1997, Yu joined Peking University, where he established the College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture and served as its dean. His research focuses on ecological planning, climate resilience, and flood mitigation. He returned to teach at Harvard as visiting professor from 2010 to 2014.

Yu has published over 300 academic papers and 20 books on topics such as landscape urbanism, green infrastructure, and sponge cities. He also founded the journal Landscape Architecture Frontiers, which explores nature-based solutions for urban resilience. His theories and designs have influenced policy-making and environmental planning in China and internationally.

In 1998, Yu founded Turenscape, an interdisciplinary design firm focusing on landscape architecture, urban planning, architecture, and ecological restoration, which Fast Company called one of The 10 Most Innovative Architecture Companies of 2021 for "balancing China's hyperspeed urbanization with green sponge cities." Under his leadership, Turenscape has completed over 1000 projects in over 200 cities, integrating traditional Chinese water management techniques with modern urban planning.

Yu's design philosophy is rooted in the idea of ecological security patterns and adaptive urbanism. He advocates for the "Big Feet Revolution", a concept that prioritizes resilience, functionality, and sustainability over ornamental aesthetics and defined landscape and urban design as the Art of Survival.

Yu's Sponge City concept is a nature-based approach to urban water management, designed to mitigate flooding, improve water quality, and enhance biodiversity. Instead of relying on concrete drainage systems, Sponge Cities use wetlands, permeable surfaces, and green spaces to absorb, filter, and store rainwater.

Yu argued that prevailing climate strategies focus predominantly on carbon, while largely overlooking the destabilized water cycle that intensifies disasters and accelerates climate change. He criticized current adaptation strategies—heavily reliant on grey infrastructure—as short-sighted and inadequate. In contrast, he proposed that nature-based ecological infrastructure could help reverse this trend. Yu defined the Sponge City as a holistic response to the climate crisis, far surpassing a narrow focus on urban flood management. He later expanded the concept globally through the 'Sponge Planet' approach, advocating for the ecological restoration of wetlands, rivers, and coastal zones to recover and stabilize the global water cycle—positioning it as a comprehensive, nature-based solution for both climate mitigation and adaptation.