117 When he was 10 years old, growing up a farmer’s son in a small village in Zhejiang Province of China, Kongjian Yu fell into a river. The water flowed slowly, and he was able to grab ahold of a willow branch to save himself. Within 10 years, the river was completely transformed and far more dangerous. “In the 1980s, we copied what the Americans and Europeans were doing with all these pipe systems,” Yu said. The river was channelized, the trees were removed, and the water became swift and prone to destructive flooding. Had the river been this way when Yu fell in as a child, he’s sure he would have drowned. The mechanized landscape imposed on the river had other disastrous effects. It destroyed nature and livelihoods in Yu’s home village. “The birds stopped coming,” he said. “We lost the wetlands the buffalo needed.” Motivated by his childhood experiences, Yu would eventually create the “sponge city” concept—designing a landscape that mimics a natural wetland. The destruction of what he calls a paradise set Yu on a path of study. He wanted to understand the power and benefits of water. He chose landscape architecture and studied geodesign, a method of design and planning informed by geography. He applied GIS technology to take a holistic and data-driven approach to landscape-level interventions. Yu’s method of using the landscape to capture, filter, and store rainfall has been adopted at 640 sites in 250 municipalities across China. By adapting to water rather than fighting it, the sponge city concept beautifies riverbanks, “Sponge City” Using Water to Improve Social and Ecological Outcomes Building and Operating Modern Infrastructure
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