Kongjiang Yu - Bigfoot Landscape

Kongjiang Yu.docx www.abap.org.br/congresso/paginas_palestrantes/dr_kongjian_yu.
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Dr. Kongjian Yu
Dr. Yu received his Doctor of Design Degree at The Harvard Gradu-
ate School of Design in 1995. He is the founder and dean of the
Graduate School of Landscape Architecture at Peking University, and
the founder and president of Turenscape, which is an internationally
awarded firm with more than 400 professionals and is one of the first
and largest private landscape architecture and architecture firms in
China.
Dr. Yu publishes widely, including more than 200 papers and 15 books. His current
book is: The Art of Survival-Recovering Landscape Architecture. His major research inter-
ests include: the theory and method of landscape architecture and urban planning; the
cultural aspect of the landscape; landscape security patterns and ecological infrastructure.
The New Aesthetics: Key for High Performance Landscape

Kongjian Yu Professor and Dean, Peking University Graduate School of Landscape Architecture
And President, Turenscape
Abstract
For thousands of years, the urban elite – the so called civilized people – have claimed to
define beauty and good taste, as an assertion of superiority and power. The practice has
taken many forms, from the bound feet of women in China and to the deformed Mayan
heads and elongated necks in Thailand and some African countries. While the aesthetic
differences are striking, other features are consistent, such as impracticality. In trying to
elevate city sophisticates above rural bumpkins, people have rejected nature’s genetic goals
of health, survival, and productivity. Landscaping and city building is another branch of
this “art”, and by far, the most visible and extensive one. The massive movement of popu-
lation from rural to urban areas is a recent phenomenon. The aestheticized landscapes
defined by a privileged urban minority prior to the 20th century are now a Mecca to the
masses, whose peasant ancestors struggled for generations to become city dwellers. These
migrants, just like the peasant girls with their big feet, are eager to bind their feet, to gentr-
ify themselves physically and mentally. Along with this process of urbanization, the natural
and functional landscape has slowly been deprived of productivity, its support of life, and
its natural beauty. What values do we hold as designers? Both global and local conditions
compel us to embrace an art enmeshed with fostering survival, promoting land steward-
ship, and making ornament subservient to those goals. We need a new aesthetics of big
feet—beautiful big feet and high performance landscapes.
1. The “Little Foot Aesthetics” and the “Jumbo Dream”
For more than a thousand years, if a young Chinese girl wanted to marry a city gentleman,
she had to bind her feet. The healthy, natural, practical “big” feet were considered rustic
and rural. By contrast, the unhealthy, deformed and citified small feet, noxiously deprived
of functionality, malodorous and with limited practical use, were considered “beautiful”
(Jackson, 2001; Wang, 2002; Ko, Dorothy, 2005) (Figure 01a, 01b). Foot binding, to-
gether with the Mayan practice of deforming heads (Tiesler, 1999) (along with many other
culture body-deforming practices), were seen as a rite of urban initiation and urbanity.
Urbanization began with a highly privileged class who sacrificed “function” for aesthet-
ic reward and cosmetic values. The same “Little Foot” value system has been used for
thousands of years by the privileged urban minority to build and appreciate cities and
landscapes. By definition, “Little Foot Urbanism” is the art of gentrification and cosmet-
ics. It drives away the messy, fertile, productive and functional landscapes that are asso-
ciated with healthy people (Figure 02a, 02b).
ASBN10/15 Sustainable Urban Landscape, Architecture and Built Environment, LU. +46 46 222 15 35, catharina.sternudd@arkitektur.lth.se 1
Kongjiang Yu.docx www.abap.org.br/congresso/paginas_palestrantes/dr_kongjian_yu.html 2011-01-12
Figure01: Big foot landscape vs. small foot landscape: (01) The productive and high performance vernacular landscape as an art
of survival; (02) The little foot landscape as an art of ornament and cosmetics (the rendering of The Grand View Garden in
Beijing)
Today we bind our natural feet in the city with fashionable high-heeled shoes, just as
we build a 100-year concrete flood control dike to surround the city and keep it distant
from the water. We build a storm water management system that does not allow the re-
filtration of water to the aquifer before being flushed into the ocean; we replace native
“messy” and productive shrubs and crops with pretty flowers that bear no fruits and sup-
port no species; we up-root hardy wild grass and replace it with smooth ornamental lawn
that consumes gallons of water; we watch funny deformed puppy dogs and baby pigs run-
ning on the paved street of shining marble, chasing away wild birds and native species.
These urbanized landscapes serve an ornamental function. They show man’s power
over nature. Examples of ornamental buildings include the CCTV Tower and the Nation-
al Opera House in Beijing. Shanghai and Dubai have many more. Almost all of the land-
mark buildings are crowned with some kind of funny hats – a top tier that “crowns” the
building, giving it the impression of an emperor looking down on his subjects. But as the
whole city becomes cosmeticized, its ornaments burden it by causing water shortages, air
pollution, global warming, wasting land and natural resources that could be producing
food, losing cultural identity.
The landscapes, cities and buildings of today’s “Little Foot Urbanism” and “Little Foot
Aesthetics” trend are alike the gentrified lady’s noxious feet: unhealthy, deformed, de-
prived of functionality, impractical and malodorous. “Little foot Urbanism” is a path to
death.
This Little Foot dream used to be attainable to less than 10% of the high class urban
minority prior to the late half of the 20th century. Now nearly everyone can dream it. In
China alone, 18 million people are urbanized each year, immigrating to the city from the
rustic rural land, desperate to live the furnished urban dream. These people want the same
thing: to be “urbane”, to be gentrified; to keep their distance from natural functionality
and to dispense with a healthy and productive life. When developing countries follow
“Little Foot Urbanism” encounter the “American Jumbo Dream”, the scenario gets even
worse. China and India have now glimpsed the American dream of a jumbo car and a
gigantic mansion; and they want to super-size everything else. So we super-size the build-
ings such as the National Stadium in Beijing that used 42,000 metric tons of steel, ac-
counting for roughly 500 kg/square meter; we celebrate the super-sized CCTV Tower in
Beijing that consumed 250 kg/square meter; we super-size the urban squares to 10 or even
20 hectares in an area of pure granite pavement with an ornamental pattern. The land has
become a little donkey with a heavy burden: China has only 7% of the world natural re-
sources of arable land and sweet water but needs to feed 22% of the world’s population.
China inherited its own traditional love of “Little Foot” and but now wants it on the su-
per-sized scale of the American Jumbo Dream.
Where will the Little Foot Urbanism with a side-order of Jumbo Dream lead China?
Two thirds of China’s 662 cities are short of water; 75% of the nation’s surface water is
polluted; and 64％ of cities’ underground water is polluted. One third of the national
population are under the threat of drinking polluted water; 50% of wetlands have disap-
peared in the past 50 years alone in China （Chen, Lü, and Zhang,2004; McAlister,
2005. How will we survive in the future?
2. The “Big Foot Revolution”: Recovering Landscape Architecture as An Art of Survival
It’s time for a change! It is time to recover and redefine Landscape Architecture as An Art
of Survival! Two strategies have to be taken: Strategies that will provide an alternative and
guide for sustainable cities in the future:
2.1 Planning for the “Big Foot” Landscape：Urban Development Based on Ecological Infrastructure
This is the spatial strategy of urban development planning that will allow landscape to lead
the way. We need planners to understand the land as a living system, and understand
landscape in terms of ecological infrastructure (EI) that will guide and frame the land and
future urban development. EI is the structural landscape network. It is composed of the
critical landscape elements and spatial patterns. EI also evidences strategic significance in
safeguarding the integrity and identity of the natural and cultural landscapes, which in
turn secure sustainable ecosystem services. The Ecological Infrastructure across scales is the
high performance natural “Big Foot” landscape that will provide essential ecosystem ser-
vices for our society, and is the basis of ecological urbanism.
By using minimal space, EI will safeguard the following four critical eco-services
(MEA, 2005):
1) Provide. By this, we mean food production and clean water. 2) Regulate. A naturally
maintained environment will control climate, disease, and mediate flood and drought. 3)
Support. This relates to nutrient cycles and providing habitat (suitable living space) for
native plant and animal species; 4) Culture. This is the maintenance of spiritual and recre-
ational benefits. The main objective of the Negative Approach is Smart Protection and
Smart Growth.
As an Ecological Urbanism spatial strategy, and as a healthy “Big Foot” of our land, the
Ecological Infrastructure shall be planned across scales. The national and regional EI need
to be planned through the identification of strategic landscape patterns (Security Patterns)
to safeguard the critical ecological processes which act as a framework directing the overall
regional land use planning and urban growth patterns. At a medium scale, structural ele-
ments of Ecological Infrastructure such as corridors and patches are clearly identified and
drawn to guarantee the integrity of the regional landscape. At a small scale, the ecosystem
services, provided by the regional ecological infrastructure, will be extended into the urban
fabric and guide urban design for individual sites (Figure 03) (Yu and Li, et al., 2008).
Figure 03 The Regional Ecological Infrastructure For Beijing City
2.2 “Big Foot’ Aesthetics: seven projects, seven principles
A “New Aesthetic” is required to allow the operation and appreciation of ecological urban-
ism and the establishment of an ecological infrastructure. The aesthetics of “Big Foot” will
be our alternative to the “Little Foot” aesthetics. The following seven projects are de-
signed, and six of them were executed, by the author and Turenscape over the past 10
years, demonstrating some major principals that define “Big Foot” aesthetics, based on
ecological awareness and environmental ethics.
(1)Make friends with Floods: The Floating Gardens of Yongning River Park
Modern cities that follow “Little Foot urbanism” are designed against natural forces, espe-
cially the ones related to water. When the cities are built, they are designed to shut out and
degrade the natural services and man made ones are introduced in their place. As an alter-
nate approach to conventional urban water management and flood control engineering
that uses concrete and pipes, the Yongning Park project shows how we can live and design
with the natural “Big Foot” water system. Letting loose the concrete bindings on the urban
water system, we took an ecological approach to flood control and storm water manage-
ment, revealing the beauty of the native vegetation and the ordinary landscape. The results
have been remarkably successful: Flood problems were successfully addressed and the “Big
Foot” native grass has been appreciated by local people as well as tourists (Figure 04)( For
detailed review of this park, see: Graham and Kong, 2007).
Figure 04 Making friends with floods: The Floating Gardens of Yongning River Park
(2) Go Productive: The Rice Campus of Shenyang Architectural University

For centuries, universities have been places to gentrify rustic youth into urbane gentlemen,
and their landscapes have been a reflection of this. Hundreds and thousands of hectares of
fertile land have been transformed into campuses of ornamental lawn and flowers in the
past three decades in China. As an alternative, the Shenyang Architectural University
Campus was designed to be productive. Storm water is collected to make a reflecting
pond, which is also a reservoir to irrigate the rice paddy right in front of the class rooms.
Open study rooms are allocated in the middle of the rice fields. Frogs and fishes are culti-
vated in the rice paddy to eat the lava of insects, and once grown they too become an addi-
tional harvest for the lunch table. This project demonstrates how an agricultural landscape
can become part of the urbanized environment, and yet aesthetically enjoyable. This pro-
ductive landscape is a clear example of the new “Big Foot” aesthetic: unbound, functional
and beautiful (Figure 05)(For detailed review of this project, see Padua, 2006)
Figure 05 Go Productive: The Rice Campus of Shenyang Architectural University
(3) Value the ordinary and recycle the existing: Zhongshan Shipyard Park
For a long time, we have been proud of our human capability to build, destroy and re-
build. Because of this human instinct, both natural assets and man made assets have been
over-used and we are in serious danger of running out of both. The Zhongshan Shipyard
Park instead demonstrates the principle of preserving, reusing and recycling natural and
man-made materials. The park is built on a brownfield site where a now abandoned shi-
pyard was erected in the 1950s. The shipyard went bankrupt in 1999, an event which was
barely noticed by the wider country, but the shipyard reflects the remarkable fifty-year
history of socialist China. Original vegetation and natural habitats were preserved. Only
native plants were used throughout the landscape design. Machines, docks, and other
industrial structures were recycled for the purpose of education and function. This uncon-
ventional approach made this park a favorite site for weddings and fashion shows and
tourism as well as for daily use by the local community. It demonstrated how “messy” and
“rustic” can be aesthetically attractive, how environmental ethics and ecological awareness
can be built into our urban landscape (Figure 06) (For detailed review of this project, see
Padua, 2003).
Figure 06. Recycle the existing. Zhongshan Shipyard Park, Zhongshan City
(4)Let nature work: The Adaptation Palettes of The Qiaoyuan Park, Tianjin City
From the classical gardens of Versailles and Imperial China to the contemporary Olympic
Park, we have seen great efforts made to create and maintain artificial ornamental land-
scapes. Instead of providing ecosystems services for the city, public spaces actually become
a burden in terms of energy and water consumption. The Qiaoyuan Park in Tianjin City
provides an alternative by exemplifying how natural processes originate and letting nature
work. In this way it actually provides an environmental service for the city.
The site was a former shooting range. It became a garbage dump and a drainage sink
for urban storm water, heavily polluted and deserted. The soil had heavy saline and alka-
line properties. Inspired by the adaptive vegetation communities that dot the regional flat
coastal landscape, the designer developed a solution called The Adaptation Palettes: nu-
merous pond cavities of different depths were dug to retain storm water, and within these
diverse habitats were created. Seeds of mixed plant species were sowed to kick-start vegeta-
tion and a regenerative design process was introduced to evolve and adapt over time. The
patchiness of the landscape reflects the regional water- and alkaline-sensitive vegetation.
The beauty of the native landscape attracts thousands of visitors every day. The ecology-
driven and low maintenance “Big-Foot” has become an aesthetic attraction that lures
thousands of visitors every day (Figure 07).
Figure 07 Let nature work: The Adaptation Palettes of The Qiaoyuan Park, Tianjin City
(5) Minimal intervention: The Red Ribbon, Tanghe River Park, Qinhuangdao City, Hebei Province
In the process of urbanization, a natural landscape is usually replaced with overly designed
and gentrified garden or park. The Red Ribbon Park in China’s Qinhuangdao city ex-
plored an alternative that integrated art with nature and dramatically transformed the
landscape with minimal design. Against a background of natural terrain and vegetation,
the landscape architect placed a five-hundred-meter “red ribbon” bench combining the
functions of lighting, seating, environmental interpretation and orientation. While pre-
serving as much of the “messy” natural river corridor as possible, this project demonstrates
how a minimal design solution can achieve dramatic improvements, turning a “messy”
natural Big Foot landscape into a beautiful urban park, while preserving the natural
processes and patterns (Figure 08)(For a detailed review of this project, see Stokman and
Ruff，2008; Padua, 2008).
Figure 08 Minimal intervention: The Red Ribbon, Tanghe River Park, Qinhuangdao City, Hebei Province
(6) Purifying polluted water: The Houtan Park of 2010 Shanghai Expo
As an important demonstration site for the 2010 Shanghai Expo, Houtan park is designed
as a ecological landscape that purifies the heavily polluted water from the Huangpu River,
the mother river of the largest Chinese city Shanghai. Inspired by the terraced fields in
hilly China, a terraced wetland has been created to deposit, filtrate and purify the polluted
water as it runs through the fields. Crops and native species are used to absorb the nu-
trients and dissolve the organic components of the contaminated water. As a result, the
former brown field of steel industry will become a high performance landscape that creates
clean water for the use at the Expo park, as well as grain for wildlife. Students will also be
able to study natural systems and the site will provide aesthetic pleasure to the countless
Expo visitors and beyond (Figure 09).
Figure 09 Purifying polluted water: The Houtan Park of 2010 Shanghai Expo
(7) From the Art of Survival to the Art Beyond Survival: The Chicago Art Field: A Proposal for the North Grant Park
Renovation
Ecological urbanism and big foot aesthetics call for the integration of art into the produc-
tive and rustic nature and man-made landscape. The process of “gentrification” will im-
prove the aesthetics of the area, but not detract from its productive, healthy nature. The
Chicago Art Field is our demonstration of this principle. Due to the renovation of the East
Monroe Street Parking Garage – which underlies Daley Bicentennial Plaza – the necessary
removal of the Plaza altogether (which composes the entire northeast section of Grant
Park) will become a step in the renovation process, ultimately leading to the construction
of the new park. The design we proposed is a cultural emblem and a canvas against which
the natural cycles of the metropolitan landscape can occur. The cornfield, the identifying
feature of the Chicago Art Field, is both a symbol of Chicago’s agrarian heritage and a
continually regenerating agricultural process. Amongst the growing crops, various art in-
stallations, performances, children’s playgrounds, an ice skating rink, meeting places, and
observation areas will find their own cycles in tandem with the progression of the seasons.
The planting and harvest of the Chicago Art Field each year will become community event
to mark the continued renewal of Chicago's vitality. In turn, the Chicago Art Field will
become a place to observe and harvest the progress of the city (Figure 10).
Figure 10 From the Art of Survival to the Art Beyond Survival: The Chicago Art Field: A Proposal for the North Grant Park
Renovation
Conclusion
Indeed the industrial revolution has the most relevant impact in our actual lives; they not
only transformed the way we dress or work, but determined the principles of the space we
move through without a clear consciousness of the interdependent character of our ecosys-
tems. The Industrial revolution started 250 years ago; the path it drew is leading us to end
with our planet’s resources. The gentrification to make the productive and healthy nature
and agricultural landscapes into low performance ornamental scenery has long being de-
fined as tasteful and beautiful, and guides the practice of civic art and landscaping.
We need to learn the lesson that the continuous use of ornament is leading us to fail-
ure. We know it and there is no forgiveness to happen in future generations that will suffer
from our lack of action or our effort to improve our environment. It is time for us to lead
the new way of our profession, understanding the Landscape as a field where to define the
Ecological Infrastructure of the cities, and understanding landscape profession as a profes-
sion that has an important role in restoring the polluted soil, recovering the wetlands,
reestablishing forests, cleaning the air and water. If we want to make our landscapes and
the Globe sustainable in matching the revolutionary urbanization process, we need a revo-
lutionary change to our living styles, and foremost the taste and aesthetics of about land-
scapes, and we need to redefine landscape architecture as an art of survival and we need to
create a new aesthetics: The Big Foot Aesthetics, the aesthetics based on high performance,
holistic ecosystem’s services and environmental ethics.
References
MEA (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment,2005. Ecosystems and Human Well-Being:

Synthesis. Island Press, Washington. 155pp.
Ko, Dorothy, 2005. Cinderella’s Sisters: A Revisionist History of Foot binding. Los An-
geles: University of California Press.
Jackson, Beverley, 2001. Splendid Slippers: A Thousand Years of an Erotic Tradition: A
history of Chinese foot binding, Ten Speed Press
Chen, Kelin, Lü Yong, Zhang ,Xiaohong, 2004, “No Water without Wetland,” China
Environment and Development Review, 2004, 296–309.
McAlister, John, 2005, “China’s Water Crisis,” Deutsche Bank China Expert Series,
March 22, 2005.
Tiesler, Vera, 1999 “Head Shaping and Dental Decoration Among the Maya: Archeologi-
cal and Cultural Aspects,” Society of American Anthropology, 64 : 1–6.
Yu, Kongjian, Hailong Li and Dihua Li, 2008, Ecological Infrastructure as a Tool for
Smart Preservation and Smart Growth, Proceedings of the 44th ISOCARP Congress
2008, Dalian. http://www.isocarp.net/Data/case_studies/1196.pdf
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Padua, Mary G. 2003, Industrial Strength——Zhongshan Shipyard Park, Landscape
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Padua, Mary G. 2003, 2006, Touching The Good Earth——An innovative campus de-
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Kongjiang Yu.docx www.abap.org.br/congresso/paginas_palestrantes/dr_kongjian_yu.

The New Aesthetics: Key for High Performance Landscape

Figure 03 The Regional Ecological Infrastructure For Beijing City

2.2 “Big Foot’ Aesthetics: seven projects, seven principles

(2) Go Productive: The Rice Campus of Shenyang Architectural University

Figure 05 Go Productive: The Rice Campus of Shenyang Architectural University

MEA (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment,2005. Ecosystems and Human Well-Being:

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