Chinese landscape architect Kongjian Yu dies in Brazil plane crash

Chinese landscape architect Kongjian Yu died in a plane crash late on Tuesday in the vast Brazilian wetlands of Mato Grosso do Sul state, Brazilian authorities said on Wednesday. Yu, 62, gained global relevance as a landscape architect and urban planner after the Chinese government adopted his concept of "sponge cities" using nature-based solutions to absorb and retain water instead of concrete infrastructure to channel it away. The concept has since been adopted in hundreds of places in China as well as urban areas from the US to Russia. Brazilian authorities confirmed that Yu and three other people, the pilot and two local filmmakers, were killed when the aircraft they were travelling in crashed in a rural area near the...