On-Demand / The Cultural Landscape Foundation Soak It Up Partnership: Designing Resilient Cities: The Power of Water in Landscape Architecture Part 1

As climate change accelerates, urban flooding and water mismanagement pose significant challenges for cities worldwide. This session explores innovative, nature-based solutions from three global leaders in landscape architecture—Kongjian Yu (China), Jasper Jugtenburg (Netherlands), and Mia Lehrer (United States). Learn how the "sponge cities" concept, blue-green infrastructure, and adaptive urban design can transform water from a threat into a resource.Through groundbreaking case studies and visionary design approaches, this session will reveal how landscape architects can shape more resilient, sustainable, and water-conscious cities. Join us for an inspiring discussion on designing with water, rethinking infrastructure, and creating the next generation of climate-adaptive urban environments. Playcore is honored to partner with The Cultural Landscape Foundation on this series as they continue to set the bar and produce beautiful content that highlights the importance of Landscape Architecture and its critical role in connecting people to places.

Learning Outcomes:

  1. Identify key moments that led each practitioner to pursue landscape architecture and their commitment to water-focused design.
  2. Examine how each practitioner’s work has evolved in response to regional water management challenges and cultural considerations.
  3. Analyze the integration of design and water management strategies across different environmental contexts.
  4. Evaluate case studies that demonstrate the effectiveness of nature-based solutions in urban water management.

Kongjian Yu

Founder and Principal Designer for Turenscape & Professor and Dean for the College of Architecture and Landscape of Peking University

Turenscape & Peking University

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.

Mia Lehrer, FASLA

Founder

Studio-MLA

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. 

Jasper Hugtenburg

Senior Landscape Architect & Project Leader

H+N+S Landscape Architects

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. 

This session will offer the following credits:

    

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0.2 IACET CEU 
        2.0 AIA HSW LU 
    2.25 LA CES HSW PDH


CEUs for a total of 1 Professional Development Hours (0.2 IACET CEU / 2.0 AIA HSW LU / 2.25 LA CES HSW PDH) will be provided to learners meeting the following requirements: 

  • Be present for 95% of the duration of the learning event; 
  • Participate in activities and discussion throughout; 
  • Complete assessment with 80% mastery of learning outcome;
  • Complete feedback/evaluation survey.


CEUs can be applied toward NRPA CPRP/CPRE renewal. To obtain your CEU, please visit the "Event Details" tab above to complete the associated components for this event.

Instructor(s) Disclosures:

The instructors of this training webinar are employed by PlayCore and disclose an interest in attendees partnering with PlayCore on their play and recreation initiatives.


Speakers Disclosures:

The opinions of the speakers in these events do not necessarily reflect the views of PlayCore and its brands.


Notes:

For any questions or to request a copy of the written transcript for this session, please contact core@playcore.com

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Video 1: Creating a Sponge Planet with Kongijan Yu of China
Select the "View On-Demand Recording" button to begin.  |  20 minutes  |   Closed captions available
Select the "View On-Demand Recording" button to begin.  |  20 minutes  |   Closed captions available Kongjian Yu, the Harvard-educated founder and principal designer at the Beijing-based landscape architecture firm Turenscape and 2023 Oberlander Prize laureate, is a champion of the “sponge cities” concept for mitigating urban flooding. Kongjian Yu says he was “born a landscape architect” and cites his childhood in Dong Yu village in Jinhua, Zhejiang Province as where he first understood the interaction between land, plants, water, and people. The careful management of the village’s paddies insured each had sufficient water during the dry season; from this he learned about scale and the subtleness of topography. A pivotal childhood experience during which he nearly drowned made him realize the importance of water as well as how to regulate water, design with water, and combine green and blue (plant materials and water). The concrete channelizing of his village’s water ways and use of chemicals led to pollution and changed his hometown “from a paradise to a hell.” This represents a misuse of industrial technologies and so-called grey infrastructure that has killed nature-based ecosystems. Yu says this has played out elsewhere in the world leading to a global tragedy that is now being accelerated by climate change. All of this propelled his interest in the “sponge cities” concept and the power of the landscape architecture profession to develop and implement nature-based solutions, a new infrastructure. He presents three significant projects before stating that landscape architecture is the only profession that can solve multiple problems at once, and that the biggest mission for landscape architecture is “the creation of a sponge planet.”
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Video 2: Shaping Water, Shaping land with Jasper Hugtenburg of the Netherlands
Select the "View On-Demand Recording" button to begin.  |  20 minutes  |   Closed captions available
Select the "View On-Demand Recording" button to begin.  |  20 minutes  |   Closed captions available Jasper Hugtenburg is a landscape architect and a geographer who was born and raised in a Dutch polder – which is land reclaimed from the sea (a process Hugtenburg says that yields a “truly manmade landscape”). The construction of polders dates to the twelfth century and the process is always being reworked and refined. Hugtenburg, citing this history, says it’s a “privilege to adjust these landscapes to present day needs.” He adds, living in a polder means you’re always aware of the dangers of the water around you. At the University of Utrecht he specialized in coastal and river systems. He describes the “Room for the River Project” as the event that resulted in the founding of the firm for which he works, H+N+S Land Architecture; the firm is now more than 25 years old. He also discusses the “Four Maxims of the Dutch Approach to Landscape Architecture.” He describes landscape architecture as an “open ended” process and says he works in close collaboration with allied professionals and stakeholders. The Netherlands deals with water coming from all directions: from the rivers ; the sea; the sky in the form of storms; and the ground water table. He then provides an overview of water and landscape management and planning at three sites along the Meuse River.
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Video 3: Nature, Water, and Urban Transformation with Mia Lehrer with Mia Lehrer of Studio MLA
Select the "View On-Demand Recording" button to begin.  |  20 minutes  |   Closed captions available
Select the "View On-Demand Recording" button to begin.  |  20 minutes  |   Closed captions available El Salvador-born, Los Angeles-based landscape architect Mia Lehrer speaks lovingly of her lush homeland and climbing volcanoes as a child. She studied at Tufts University (where she had to get used to snow) and was captivated by the geology course. In the lobby of Harvard’s Graduate School of Design she saw Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr.’s massive competition drawing for New York’s Central Park that introduced her to the discipline of landscape architecture. The department chair, Peter Walker, was very welcoming, and she encountered some of the leading figures in the field. Lehrer describes becoming aware of the layered planning and design decisions in nature-based work, and discusses Canadian landscape architect Cornelia Oberlander’s emphasis on the importance of research and knowing your plant materials. She describes early projects in Los Angeles and becoming involved with the revitalization of the Los Angeles River and its 52 miles of concretized channels, with which she is still actively involved and about which she provides many fascinating details. Lehrer is also purposeful in making professional connections and serves on the L.A. Business Council, L.A. Water and Power Commission, among others. Another major project is transforming a giant landfill into a public park, about which she observes: recreating nature is not easy especially when you’re working on a pile of garbage.
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