Click here for Here & Now’s January interview with Kongjian Yu.
Chinese landscape architect Kongjian Yu changed the way we think about water and city infrastructure. He was the man behind the phrase “sponge cities,” which he extended to “sponge planet.” He believed that instead of trying to keep water out with concrete sea walls, cities should let the water in to reclaim wetlands.
Yu died last month in a plane crash in Brazil along with a film crew producing a documentary about him. He was 62.
Yu and his Beijing-based company Turenscape had won every top landscape award. He traveled the world like a pied piper, followed by top local climate scientists soaking up his teachings about soaking up water like a sponge.
Last year, host Robin Young joined Boston scientists and leaders on a trip to Cathleen Sone Island just off the harbor, where Yu was a guest of the Jim and Cathleen Stone Foundation, and walked with city leaders to point out how water could be handled.
Yu’s former Harvard professor, Stephen Ervin, was there, and reflects now on the loss of his former student.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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