Published: 2:44pm, 25 Sep 2025Updated: 2:54pm, 25 Sep 2025
Tributes have flooded in from around the world to Yu Kongjian, the distinguished Chinese landscape architect and urbanist who died in a plane crash in Brazil’s Pantanal wetlands near the town of Aquidauana late on Tuesday.
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Three others on board the single-engine four-seater Cessna aircraft – Brazilian filmmakers Luiz Ferraz and Rubens Crispim Junior, as well as Marcelo Pereira de Barros, a well-known local pilot – were also killed.
Yu, 62, who was dean and professor at Peking University’s College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture as well as founder of the Beijing-based design firm Turenscape, was widely lauded for his “sponge city” concept – using nature-based solutions to absorb rainwater and cushion extreme weather impacts.
Yu’s ideas were adopted as a national policy in China in 2013 and the concept has been implemented in hundreds of places across the country, as well as in urban areas ranging from the US to Russia.
Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva wrote on social media that: “In times of climate change, Kongjian Yu has become a global reference for sponge cities, which combine quality of life and environmental protection: something we want – and need – for the future.”
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The American Society of Landscape Architects said in a statement that “the world lost a visionary leader and landscape architect … whose visionary leadership reshaped how cities around the world can work with water and nature for a more compassionate and resilient future”.