Número 12
12-05-2026Sponge Cities. Kongjian Yu’s Architecture
In November 2019, during a visit to the Magdalena River in Mexico City, landscape architect Kongjian Yu identified in that fragment of a living stream a system with water, ecological, and social functions that can be enhanced through design. That ability to read an urban river as an active ecological infrastructure, rather than a drainage problem, synthesizes the approach that guided his professional and academic career. On September 23, 2025, an accident ended his life while he was flying over and documenting the world’s largest wetland system in the Pantanal region of Brazil. This article is a recognition of his work and the validity of his legacy.
URLKongjian Yu was a landscape architect, senior lecturer at Beijing University, and founder of Turenscape, a landscape design firm based in Beijing since 1998. Trained at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, Yu developed a conceptual framework that integrates landscape ecology, territorial planning, and regenerative design to respond to the challenges that accelerated urbanization imposes on natural water systems. Turenscape has executed more than 600 projects in China and other countries and is internationally acknowledged as a benchmark in nature-based solutions for metropolitan contexts.
Magdalena River.
Cortesía de las autoras
In several articles and books, Yu articulated a substantive critique of the dominant model of hydraulic engineering in the 22th century, that channels, pipes, and expels rainwater from cities as quickly as possible. Faced with this paradigm, he proposed recovering the natural processes of the hydrological cycle, with the functions of infiltration, retention, evapotranspiration, and slow flow as organizing principles of the urban form and of what he called “sponge cities,” capable of absorbing, storing, filtering, and releasing water in correspondence with the rhythms of the ecosystem. A sponge city project not only reduces flooding: it also improves water quality, recharges the subsoil, regulates urban temperature, creates habitats, and generates quality public spaces.
Among Turenscape’s most documented projects is Qiaoyuan Park in Tianjin (2008), where a former landfill was transformed into a wetland system that treats polluted water and is home to a significant diversity of flora and fauna. Similarly, the Minghu River Park in Liupanshui (2014) converted a sewage canal into a five-kilometer ecological corridor, reducing flooding events and regenerating the surrounding urban fabric. These cases constitute empirical evidence that nature-based solutions can operate efficiently and are scalable in complex metropolitan contexts.
Tianjin Qiaoyuan Park.
World Architecs
China institutionalized the model as public policy through a national program launched in 2015 that has channeled considerable investments into pilot projects in more than 30 cities, positioning the country as the world’s leading investor in this type of hybrid infrastructure. Yu was one of the main advisors to this program and his work was recognized with the highest awards in the field: the Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe Award from the International Federation of Landscape Architects (2020) and the Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Prize (2023), among others.
The Red Ribbon, Tanghe River Park.
Kongjian YU
Yu’s work is particularly relevant in a context of increasing pressure on water resources on a planetary scale. The United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment, and Health (UNU-INWEH) has warned about the progressive global water bankruptcy, that is, when the demand for fresh water exceeds the recharge capacity of ecosystems in multiple regions, with severe consequences for cities, especially where unplanned urban expansion has degraded basins with particular intensity, wetlands and surface water bodies. In a scenario of climate uncertainty, the deep forms proposed by Yu offer a replicable methodological framework that reminds us that urban resilience does not depend solely on walls and pipes, but on understanding that the city is part of the ecosystem that sustains it.
Minghu Wetland Park.
Turenscape
Elena Tudela Rivadeneyra is an architect from UNAM’s Faculty of Architecture and has a master’s degree in urban design from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University. She is a professor at the Faculty of Architecture and tutor of UNAM’s Postgraduate Program in Sustainability Sciences. She co-founded the Urban Resilience Office, focused on urban design, water infrastructure, landscape, and public space. She is a member of the Public Space Advisory Council and the Resilience Advisory Council of Mexico City. She is a full member of the National Academy of Architecture, Valle de México Chapter.
Michelle Meza Paredes is a landscape architect graduated from UNAM and holds a master’s degree in Sustainable Development from the Latin American Forum of Environmental Sciences (FLACAM) of the National University of Lanús, Argentina. Professor at UNAM’s Faculty of Architecture, she coordinates and participates in workshops and academic projects related to landscape planning and design. She has collaborated on master plans and territorial projects in Mexico, integrating socio-ecological approaches, green infrastructure and nature-based solutions. Besides, she is an active member of Latin American academic networks. She combines professional practice, research, and teaching with an emphasis on sustainability, landscape management, and environmental regeneration.
Claudia Ortiz Chao is a professor at UNAM’s Faculty of Architecture, co-responsible for PATIO Lab (Laboratory of Social Cartography and Forensic Architecture). She also collaborates in the Architecture+Design and Experimental Technology Laboratory and in the Sustainable Environments Laboratory. She holds a master’s degree and is a PhD candidate at the Bartlett School of Graduate Studies, University College London, Great Britain. She has participated in 12 territorial or urban development plans of different scales. She develops inter- and trans-disciplinary work on urban processes and analysis methodologies in projects on topics such as climate change, care and cities, risk and vulnerability.
Michelle Meza Paredes is a landscape architect graduated from UNAM and holds a master’s degree in Sustainable Development from the Latin American Forum of Environmental Sciences (FLACAM) of the National University of Lanús, Argentina. Professor at UNAM’s Faculty of Architecture, she coordinates and participates in workshops and academic projects related to landscape planning and design. She has collaborated on master plans and territorial projects in Mexico, integrating socio-ecological approaches, green infrastructure and nature-based solutions. Besides, she is an active member of Latin American academic networks. She combines professional practice, research, and teaching with an emphasis on sustainability, landscape management, and environmental regeneration.
Claudia Ortiz Chao is a professor at UNAM’s Faculty of Architecture, co-responsible for PATIO Lab (Laboratory of Social Cartography and Forensic Architecture). She also collaborates in the Architecture+Design and Experimental Technology Laboratory and in the Sustainable Environments Laboratory. She holds a master’s degree and is a PhD candidate at the Bartlett School of Graduate Studies, University College London, Great Britain. She has participated in 12 territorial or urban development plans of different scales. She develops inter- and trans-disciplinary work on urban processes and analysis methodologies in projects on topics such as climate change, care and cities, risk and vulnerability.
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