On October 8, 2020, International Federation of Landscape Architects President James Hayter announced that Kongjian Yu DDes ’95 would be the winner of the 2020 Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe Award, the highest honor bestowed by the IFLA.

The award, named after British landscape architect and founding president of IFLA Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe, celebrates a living landscape architect “whose achievements and contributions have had a unique and lasting impact on the welfare of society and the environment and on the promotion of the profession of landscape architecture.”

In a release, the IFLA highlights Mr. Yu’s work as founder of Turenscape, one of the first and largest private architecture, landscape architecture, and urbanism practices in China:

“For over 20 years Yu has spent his academic career fighting against deteriorating urban ecologies and the environment. His pioneering research on Ecological Security Pattern (1995) and Ecological Infrastructure, Negative Planning and Sponge Cities (2003) has been adopted by the Chinese government as a framework for nationwide ecological protection and restoration campaigns.

“Yu defines landscape architecture as the art of survival. A native of China’s Zhejiang Province, he drew on inspiration from his childhood farming experience and the ancient wisdom of water and waste management to design and test a series of nature-based solutions.”

For more information on Mr. Yu’s accomplishments and commentary from the Jellicoe Award jury, visit the IFLA site.