Chinese language panorama architect Kongjian Yu has been awarded the 2023 Cornelia Hahn Oberlander Worldwide Panorama Structure Prize for his contributions to the sector.
Yu is the second recipient of the prize, which is awarded by the Cultural Panorama Basis (TCLF) for international contributions to the sector of panorama structure.
The quotation from the jury known as Yu “a drive for progressive change in panorama structure around the globe”.
It added that he has moved panorama structure away from “damaging confrontation with nature” and towards “a extra optimistic place of cooperation and adaptation”.
Yu, who based the Chinese language panorama structure studio Turenscape, is understood for his work in ecological structure and his development of the “sponge metropolis” idea, a approach of city planning that seeks to handle the way in which that cities shed and retain water.
Born in Jinhua, Zhejiang Province, Yu attended Beijing Forestry College in 1980 and accomplished his masters diploma in 1987.
Within the Nineteen Nineties, Yu was part of the panorama studio SWA Group in California earlier than returning to China in 1997 to discovered his personal studio, which has accomplished greater than 600 tasks internationally within the final 25 years.
“I really feel vastly inspired by the jury’s recognizing of my efforts and my work for this prestigious prize,” Yu instructed Dezeen. “And it is usually recognizing and honoring Oberland’s imaginative and prescient and manifesto.”
Yu’s work has been influenced by the devastation that monsoons brought about to cities in China, and in 2014 the federal government adopted his sponge metropolis idea as a “guiding principle” for future city growth.
Yu additionally based the division for panorama structure at Peking College and nonetheless leads this system there.
“Kongjian Yu is working at an formidable scope and scale harking back to Frederick Regulation Olmsted, Sr, the one who based the panorama structure career within the US,” TCLF CEO Charles A Birnbaum instructed Dezeen.
“Yu, like Olmsted, is an advocate, activist, inventor of latest panorama typologies, influencer, and design visionary who takes a holistic method to human and ecological programs with out compromising design excellence.”
Yu’s tasks with Turenscape have ranged from small city parks and gardens to large-scale revitalisations of landscapes inside cities and in exurban environments.
The studio reworked a river and surrounding wetlands in Liupanshui, Guizhou Province, creating terraced swimming pools alongside the river in addition to a winding, vibrant bridge to attach the 2 sides of the river.
In Chengtoushan, the studio created a collection of elevated walkways over wetlands that include an archaeological website, a challenge that was awarded the World Panorama of the Yr Award in 2017.
Different large-scale tasks in China embody the decontamination and redesign of a 168-acre (68-hectare) in Sanya, Hainan Province, and the conversion of a former dumping website right into a wildlife protect and recreation website in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province.
Turenscape has additionally accomplished tasks overseas, together with a quantity in america, comparable to Chinatown Park in Boston and Hing Hay Park in Seattle, each smaller city renewal tasks geared in the direction of the native Chinese language-American communities.
This yr, Yu gained a Cooper Hewitt Nationwide Design Award for his contributions to the sector of panorama structure and in 2020, he gained the Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe Award.
Cornelia Hahn Oberlander Worldwide Panorama Structure Prize is a biennial award and its winner receives a $100,000 prize (£81,898).
The seven-member jury awarding the prize in 2023 included MASS Design Group senior principal Christian Benimana, West 8 founder Adriaan Gueze and College of Toronto professor Jane Wolff. It was chaired by College of Expertise Sydney College of Design dean Elizabeth Mossop.
The inaugural prize was given to American panorama architect Julie Bargmann of D.I.R.T Studio in 2021. It’s named after the late German-Canadian panorama architect Cornelia Hahn Oberlander.
Different current prizes in structure embody British architect David Chipperfield successful of the 2023 Pritzker Prize, the best accolade in structure.
The duvet photograph is by Barret Dohery. All pictures courtesy of The Cultural Panorama Basis.
