On November 27, Yu Kongjian, Professor and Dean of Peking University College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, and member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS), delivered a lecture titled “Sponge Cities & Sponge Planet”. It was the fifth lecture in the China Studies Lecture Series for the 2024‒2025 academic year and was hosted by Lu Yang, Director of Graduate Studies of Yenching Academy.
Interview Notes
Before the lecture, Prof Yu Kongjian gave an interview. He first pointed out the challenges in putting the Sponge City concept into practice. First of all, it is an ecology-based approach and far different from traditional ways of industrial civilization. Fundamentally, the Sponge City concept poses challenges to the established philosophy of industrial practice. Second, this new idea needs decision-makers to boldly challenge the status quo. Third, the wide application of the concept requires for new regulations, standards and pilot projects. To this end, Prof. Yu has published articles on the Sponge City concept and prepared materials and proposals for decision-makers. Thanks to his efforts, the Sponge City theory has been widely recognized and put into practice. The best models selected from a large number of pilot projects have been introduced across China and to the other parts of the world, forming feasible solutions for the future decision-making on the issue.
After that, Prof. Yu shared his insights on Peking University’s campus landscape. He noted that the PKU campus, as a historical and cultural site for the imperial garden and luxury private garden, has great heritage, cultural and historical values. However, in consideration of depleting underground water resource and increasing maintenance cost, the professor recommended using reclaimed water, collecting rainwater, and building a sponge system for the campus landscape management. He stressed that the PKU campus should be built into a green, low-carbon model characterized by biodiversity. With the development of agricultural production, the campus will become the epitome of harmony between nature and mankind. Prof. Yu’s design philosophy has been put into practice at PKU’s Changping campus. In this Sponge Campus, animals and plants are thriving in a natural ecology.
Prof. Yu then shared his insights and advice on cross-cultural study. Emphasizing the role of cultural diversity as the source of creativity, he noted that cross-cultural contact stimulates new mindsets and ideas. He believed that with cross-cultural experience, one gains new knowledge and creativity, and that such experience is constitutes the wealth of life and is a driving force for in-depth reflection. Integrating Eastern holistic thinking and the Western analytical methods, Prof Yu has established unique theory and methodology for both academics and design; for instance, his Sponge City philosophy has opened up new paths for eco-centered development.
Review of the Lecture
Prof. Yu Kongjian reflected on his engagement in architecture and landscape design, incorporating traditional Chinese culture and philosophy and modern Chinese eco-based idea in his design, Prof. Yu has successfully and continuously promoted a design philosophy of man-landscape harmony.
In 1963, Prof Yu was born to a rural family in Dongyu Village in Jinhua, Zhejiang province. He spent his childhood in the village, helping in the field work and busy with grazing cattle. Although the labor of tilling the fields and herding cattle was arduous, the rhythm of life—rising with the sun and resting at sunset—along with the tranquil, peaceful lifestyle in close harmony with nature, made Dongyu Village a utopia in his eyes. The Baisha Creek, which flows through the village, features “Thirty-Six Weirs,” with lakes and ponds scattered around the paddies. A long-held local tradition is to dig pools to store rainwater in the wet season for later use in the dry season. This efficient, sustainable method of water utilization and reutilization is, in Yu’s eyes, beautiful and imaginative, and from it would grow the Sponge City concept years later.
Yu began to study landscape architecture at Beijing Forestry University in 1980. He admires traditional Chinese gardens, which are a perfect combination of architecture, gardening, sculpture, and calligraphy arts. The more he learnt, the more interested he became in reality of contemporary development, such as urbanization trends that have both contributed to enhanced living standards in China and changed the landscape of the country. What modern industrial technologies have done on the landscape is like what the foot-binding cloth means to a pair of natural feet; that is, the ecological environment has lost its vitality and capability to self-regulate. What’s more, climate changes have posed threats worldwide, including air pollution, water pollution, and shrinking natural habitats. China’s agriculture acreage takes up just 12% of the country’s total land area, and China has lost over 10% of its high-yield farmland to construction land during urbanization.
Having seen the destructive effects of extensive growth, Prof Yu put forth in the 1990s the “negative planning” philosophy for ecological development. “Negative planning” doesn’t mean no planning, but rather giving a second thought to the existing urban planning methodology and prioritizing ecological infrastructure and ecological security patterns over construction. Ecological security patterns (ESPs) must be designed and established under macro, medium, and micro scales. He and his research team has successfully established the state-level ecological security pattern, as well as municipal-level ESPs in Beijing and Taizhou, defining the redline areas and ideal states needed to provide ecosystem services for water conservation, geological disaster prevention and control, biodiversity conservation, cultural heritage conservation, ecological recreation. Prof Yu’s efforts have been not confined within the academics. He has contributed to related legislation and policy-making. For example, he’s delivered over 300 lectures to government officials on provincial, municipal, and county levels. And in 2006, the office of the then Premier Wen Jiabao gave an official reply to Yu’s proposal on the territorial ecological security pattern.
Professor Yu Kongjian emphasized that Chinese urban planning should use the “Big Foot Revolution” to liberate the “Bound-Foot Urban Aesthetic,” replacing “useless” decorative design with “high-yield” ecological design, and reshape a “New Utopia” of urban civilization that is healthy, beautiful, green, and low-carbon. He noted that even though the green space takes up over 30% of the urban land use in China’s cities, most of the green space is “civilized” and artificial, without productivity, or support of life. Prof. Yu has integrated the “urban agriculture” concept in his practice of design, introducing vernacular landscape into urban ecological restoration projects. Take Tanghe River Park in Qinhuangdao, Hebei province for example: instead of felling the native woods for ornamental plants, Prof Yu has retained the mess, with lush grasses, shrubs, and trees and a 500-meter bench in the densely vegetated site. The “red ribbon” meandering along the Tanghe River and the renovated waterfront park have attracted local residents. Prof Yu’s another masterpiece is the Rice Campus of Shenyang Jianzhu University. The students of the university are able to live and study in farmland, feeling in person what the legacy of culture and farming means to them. In addition, the practice of the “Big Foot” aesthetic is also seen in the Urban Oasis of Quzhou Luming Park and in the Beauty of Weeds of Zhongshan Shipyard Park.
Landscape design has played a significant role in China’s rural revitalization. In 2016, Prof. Yu and his team arrived at the ancient Xunjiansi village in Wuyuan, Jiangxi for the rehabilitation of the picturesque but isolated village. With the water system revitalization, farmland and tea hills conservation, ancient architectural restoration, and local traffic infrastructure construction, the Xunjiasi village has been rebuilt into a rural landscape integrating natural and cultural elements. The village has become a hot tourist destination for urban visitors seeking “rural experiences”, and local household income has substantially increased, plus a more than 50% increase of the permanent population.
Prof. Yu noted that landscape design means to design the ecology and that a nature-based solution enables the effective restoration of nature. Yu’s “sponge city” theory argues that “the natural wetlands along rivers can function like sponges to retain water during flooding and recharge water during drought.” As concrete experiments of the traditional Chinese philosophy of human-nature harmony, “sponge city” designs are tested and refined through modern engineering technologies, and subsequently applied as a replicable module in context-specific ecological programs. The major “sponge city” strategies include: (1) building a water storage system consisting of ponds, weirs, ditches, farmland, and rivers to retain water; (2) restoring the natural curves of riverways and retrofitting hard-edge revetment into ecologically engineered bank protection to reduce the flow velocity; and (3) replacing concrete dikes with breathing wetland walls that welcome the water. “Sponge city” projects like the Sanya Mangrove Park and Nanchang Fish Tail Park are recognized both nationally and internationally.
At the end of his lecture, Prof Yu stressed that landscape design should explore the “deep form” of human-nature harmony from the angle of “the architect of the Earth.” Unlike the “shallow form” that is refined but functionless, the “deep form” finds a balance between ecological conservation and regional development; translates vernacular, functional, and aesthetic qualities into the design language; and uses nature-based solutions to construct landscapes with ecological resilience.
