Live / TCLF Designing Resilient Cities: Global Leaders in Water, Landscape, and Urban Transformation

Kongjian Yu, the 2023 Oberlander Prize laureate, is a Harvard-educated Chinese landscape architect who has championed the idea of “sponge cities” to mitigate urban flooding. The concept addresses climate change accelerated stormwater runoff and flooding with large-scale, nature-based designs—including constructed wetlands, greenways, parks, canopy tree and woodland protection, rain gardens, green roofs, permeable pavements, bioswales, other measures—that act as sponges soaking up and storing rainfall instead of relying exclusively on traditional concrete reinforced riverbanks, dams, pipes, drains, and other conventional engineering solutions. These constructed ecosystems slow water flow and make wise use of nature’s free services to clean water, restore habitats for greater biodiversity, retain water for periods of drought, and create productive and pleasant places for people. The “sponge cities” concept was adopted as national policy in China in 2013 and has been deployed in some 600 projects in more than 200 Chinese cities, with the goal that by 2030 80% of the cities would be able to absorb 70% of their rainfall. Yu is the founder and leads the Graduate School of Landscape Architecture, and the College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture at Peking University. He is also the founder and principal designer at the landscape architecture firm Turenscape, which today numbers more than 500 employees.

Jasper Hugtenburg, is a seasoned landscape architect and physical geographer, with more than twenty years of working experience in the fields of landscape architecture, water management, and ecology. He has been working for and with prestigious design offices, government bodies and NGOs, both in the Netherlands and abroad. As a senior landscape architect and project leader with H+N+S Landscape Architects, he is currently responsible for setting up and leading mostly interdisciplinary design projects with an emphasis on sustainable landscape development. Hugtenburg holds master’s degrees in physical geography and in landscape architecture. He graduated from the Amsterdam Academy of Architecture with a thesis on the application of nature-based solutions for the coastal development of a Dutch historic sea wall. Before joining H+N+S Landscape Architects, he was a morphology expert and policy advisor at the for the Dutch National Water Authority. Hugtenburg is also a teacher in the master’s program of the Maastricht Academy of Architecture and is currently an adjunct professor at University of British Columbia School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture. 

Mia Lehrer, FASLA, founded Studio-MLA with a vision to improve the quality of life through landscape. She is internationally recognized for progressive landscape design, advocacy for sustainable and people-friendly public places, and catalyzing work for a climate-appropriate future. Lehrer has led the design and implementation of several ambitious public and private projects, including the Hollywood Park Racetrack redevelopment and its new LA NFL Stadium, the Los Angeles County Natural History Museum Gardens, Vista Hermosa Natural Park, and many projects related to the Los Angeles River. She earned her M.L.A. from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, and she lectures and teaches around the world. Among Lehrer’s recent accomplishments, she is the newest Commissioner of the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power, recipient of the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum’s 2021 National Design Award for Landscape Architecture, the ASLA LaGasse Medal, the John L. Chase Legacy Award, and was appointed by President Obama to the United States Commission of Fine Arts. 

Kotchakorn Voraakhom, CEO and Founder of Landprocess and Porous City Network, is a Thai landscape architect who works on productive public spaces, tackling climate change in dense urban areas. She created the first critical green infrastructure for Bangkok, Chulalongkorn Centenary Park. Her works also include, Thammasat Urban Farm Rooftop, the largest urban farming green roof in Asia, and the first bridge park across the river in any world capital, Chao Phraya Sky Park. The United Nations named Voraakhom winner of the UN Global Climate Action Awards, Women for Results. She was featured in the 2019 TIME 100 Next, a list from TIME Magazine that spotlights 100 rising stars shaping the world's future, as well as CNN Design, and New York Times. Voraakhom was named BBC100 Women, the Green 30 for 2020 by Bloomberg, and was a keynote opening speaker for 2019 Movin' On Summit. She is now teaching at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Voraakhom is a Chairwoman of the Climate Change Working Group of the International Federation of Landscape Architects (IFLA World), TED Fellow, Echoing Green Climate Fellow, Atlantic Fellow, and Futurity Fellow from BMW Foundation in exploring landscape architecture-based solutions to working with the water-based city she calls home. She also was a member of the jury that selected the winner of the Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Prize (2023). 

Herbert Dreiseitl, with the German firm Dreiseitl Consulting, is a landscape architect, urban designer, water artist, interdisciplinary planner, and visiting professor at the National University of Singapore (NUS), NUS Cities, and other universities. Dreiseitl is also a Harvard University Graduate School of Design Loeb Fellow and a Fellow of the Centre for Liveable Cities in Singapore. He lectures worldwide and has authored many publications including three editions of Recent Waterscapes, Planning, Building, and Designing with Water. Dreiseitl is an internationally respected expert in creating livable cities around the world with a special focus on the inspiring and innovative use of water to tackle the climate crisis and other urban environmental challenges, connecting technology with aesthetics, and encouraging people to take care and develop a sense of ownership for places. He has realized ground-breaking contemporary projects in the fields of urban design, urban hydrology, water art, stormwater management, planning, and landscape architecture such as Berlin Potsdamer Platz with Renzo Piano, Tanner Springs Park, Portland, OR, McLaren Technology Centre, London, alongside Norman Foster, Queens Botanical Garden, N.Y., and Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park in Singapore.