A small plane carrying a prominent Chinese landscape architect and three other people crashed on Tuesday in a rural area of Brazil known for its vast wetlands, killing everyone aboard, the authorities said.
The plane spun out of control during landing near the city of Aquidauana in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul, erupting into flames as it hit the ground, state authorities said.
The Brazilian agency responsible for aircraft safety was investigating the crash.
The Chinese architect who was killed, Kongjian Yu, is known for the concept of “sponge cities,” an urban planning model that harnesses natural landscapes to absorb, preserve and filter rainwater to protect towns and cities from the effects of climate change.
Two other passengers, both of whom were filmmakers, and the pilot also died in the crash in the wetlands, called the Pantanal, a scenic region in the western part of Brazil known for its rich wildlife and dramatic natural landscapes.
Mr. Yu had become known among fellow landscape architects for the way he thought about how cities should adapt to more unpredictable weather.
Instead of trying to halt the advance of water with flood walls and barriers, Mr. Yu proposed building cities that mimicked nature by adding green roofs and creating zones that could better absorb and reuse rainwater.
Mr. Yu had called the concept “sponge city” and, in a 2024 interview with The Times, he compared it to “doing tai chi with water,” a reference to the Chinese martial art anchored in redirecting energy rather than resisting it. “It’s a whole philosophy, a new way of dealing with water,” he said.
Through his Beijing-based company, Turenscape, one of the world’s largest landscape architecture firms, Mr. Yu had overseen the development of hundreds of urban water parks in China, which use landscaping to direct runoff from flash floods into the ground or to constructed wetlands.
Mr. Yu had traveled to Brazil for work, attending a major architectural conference in the capital, Brasília, this month as well as an expo in São Paulo, where he showcased solutions that could help cities adapt to a changing climate.
Mr. Yu, in a speech at the conference, said Brazilian cities could offer lessons in how urban environments can prepare themselves to climate change. “I see Brazil as the last hope for saving the planet,” he said.
In the days before the plane crash, Mr. Yu also met with local authorities and fellow architects as he visited projects in São Paulo. In one social media video, Mr. Yu spoke excitedly about the potential of turning a canal into a sponge so that it could mitigate the effects of flash flooding.
Brazil has been struggling to cope with a rapidly changing climate, which has flooded cities, parched the Amazon rainforest and ignited fires in the Pantanal, itself a natural sponge that is normally submerged for much of the year.
Mr. Yu’s urban planning concept has gained traction around the world in recent years.
“You cannot fight water,” he said in the 2024 interview. “You have to adapt to it.”
Ana Ionova is a contributor to The Times based in Rio de Janeiro, covering Brazil and neighboring countries.
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