All of us at SWA are deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Kongjian Yu, founder of @turenscape and one of the world's most visionary landscape architects. His passion marks an immense loss for the global landscape community, and we extend our heartfelt condolences to his family, colleagues, and friends around the world.

As creator of the "sponge cities" concept—a simple but radical reframing of water management as an urban asset—Yu's work serves as a lodestar for cities across the globe as we live with water and address climate change together, reasserting our profession's role as an essential pillar of modern society.

Shaped by a rural childhood in China during the Cultural Revolution, where he watched farmers build terraces, berms, and ponds during the rainy season, Yu's approach was adopted as national policy in 2013. He designed hundreds of projects across the country. Over an extraordinary career, he created countless iconic parks across China, Thailand, and the U.S., restoring urban landscapes, wetlands, riverfronts, and floodplains to ecological health, and brought this philosophy to classrooms at Peking University, Harvard, and institutions abroad. In 2023, Yu received the Cornelia Hahn Oberlander Prize from @tclfindotorg, one of the profession's highest honors.

We are forever thankful to Kongjian for his mentorship, practice, and clarity of purpose. Through his leadership and advocacy, he elevated us all and left the world better equipped to face the challenges of our time.

中文翻译:

SWA全体同仁深感悲痛地获悉，@turenscape 的创始人、世界最具远见的景观设计师之一俞孔坚先生逝世。他的殉难是全球景观界的巨大损失，我们向他的家人、同事和世界各地的朋友们致以最深切的哀悼。

作为“海绵城市”概念的创造者——这是一个将水资源管理重新定义为城市资产的简单而激进的理念——俞先生的作品成为全球城市与水共存、共同应对气候变化的指路明灯，再次肯定了我们这一行业作为现代社会重要支柱的角色。

俞先生的理念源于他在中国农村度过的童年，在那里他观察农民在雨季修建梯田、堤坝和池塘。他指出的途径在2013年被采纳为国家政策。他在全国设计了数百个项目。在他非凡的职业生涯中，他创造了无数地处中国、泰国和美国的标志性公园，将城市景观、湿地、滨河区和洪泛区恢复到生态健康状态，并将这一理念带到了北京大学、哈佛大学以及国外的教学课堂中。2023年，俞先生荣获了由文化景观基金会颁发的科妮莉亚·哈恩·奥伯兰德奖，这是该行业的最高荣誉之一。

我们永远感谢俞孔坚的指导、实践和明确的目标。通过他的领导和倡导，他提升了我们所有人，并让世界能更好地准备好迎接我们时代的挑战。