Remembering Kongjian Yu: Champion for Nature and Compassionate Cities

9/24/2025

Kongjian Yu, FASLA©Barrett Doherty / Courtesy The Cultural Landscape Foundation

On September 23, 2025, the world lost Kongjian Yu, FASLA, a visionary leader and landscape architect. The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) celebrates Yu's life and enduring contributions—founder of Turenscape and professor at Peking University—whose visionary leadership reshaped how cities around the world can work with water and nature for a more compassionate and resilient future.

Yu advanced a holistic approach to landscape architecture that integrates flood resilience, biodiversity, and human well-being. His “sponge city” strategies—embracing wetlands, parks, and permeable landscapes to absorb, store, and cleanse stormwater—have informed national policies in China and influenced urban resilience efforts globally. A prolific scholar and mentor, Yu inspired generations to see landscape architecture as the art of survival and a pathway to climate action.

His design practice and scholarship earned international recognition, including the IFLA Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe Award, the Cooper Hewitt National Design Award, and the Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Prize. Yu spoke tirelessly to landscape architecture professionals and the public over his decades long career, including in 2019, when he was a keynote speaker at the Conference on Landscape Architecture in San Francisco. Yu was elected a Fellow of ASLA in 2012, and his work with Turenscape was the recipient of several ASLA Awards.

Kona Gray, FASLA, PLA, and ASLA President said, “Kongjian was a colleague and a friend. Earlier this month we spoke together on a panel and a few good laughs, and I was reminded how his smile could light up a room and his words could make complex truths feel simple and human. He showed the world that resilience can be beautiful—and that we can make friends with water. We honor his life by carrying his work forward with open hands, open hearts, and the quiet confidence he modeled so well.”

ASLA extends its heartfelt condolences to Professor Yu’s family, friends, Turenscape colleagues, and the many communities uplifted by his work. His legacy lives on in landscapes that heal, protect, and bring people together.