Just few minutes back I came to
know that Kongjian Yu, the Chinese architect who pioneered the concept of ‘sponge
city’, has died in a plane crash in Brazil. Sponge city is one of the most significant
climate disaster adaptation strategies that will have a substantial say in how
cities are planned to respond to extreme weather events leading to flooding as also drought.
Sponge city is an important understanding towards climate resilient living spaces. It brings
in ancient Chinese farming wisdom of “making friends with water” that sync deep
understanding of nature into modern design (It need to be noted that ancient Chinese
contribution to humanity is quite significant. This in no way an endorsement to authoritarian regime that now rules China, hopefully common people assert themselves
to make it a more participatory society and a representative government for a better
world as China’s impact on the world increases. Liberty and freedom define what is
to be human and help express potential to be self). The underlining idea is to
use soft material and terrace design to retain water to adapt, slow down and
reuse, unlike modern engineering solution of draining water away as fast as
possible using concrete and steel. Instead of speeding up the drainage the
water is made less destructive by slowing down to nurture the habitat and
assimilate as living system. There are many innovative climate adaptive
strategies being explored and applied, sponge city stands out as a brilliant understanding on building
green resilient architecture across the world.
Kongjian Yu’s untimely demise is shocking and deeply felt.
