Soak It Up: Los Angeles, will focus on landscape architecture’s leadership role in addressing critical urban flooding and water management issues. It includes international leaders in the landscape architecture profession, as well as academics, critics, and journalists who will address current challenges and solutions in Los Angeles, along with global perspectives and strategies.
Water, water management, and climate change accelerated urban flooding are of paramount importance to residents and decision makers in Southern California. The daylong conference, organized by The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF) in partnership with the University of Southern California (USC) and the SWA Group on Friday December 5, 2025, at USC’s Bovard Auditorium, will focus on landscape architecture’s leadership role in addressing critical urban flooding and water management. This event is part of the programming associated with the Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Prize, a biennial honor with a $100,000 award and two years of public engagement activities. The work of the late 2023 laureate, Kongjian Yu, global champion of the “sponge cites” concept,” is the impetus for this conference. This concept has captured the attention of—and is being implemented by—landscape architects, urban planners, elected officials, and other key decision-makers around the world. In a recently produced seven-minute-long video, Kongjian discusses his life and work and the genesis of the ”sponge cities” concept.
Speakers include leading landscape architects, academics, and critics from Los Angeles and beyond, who will examine provocative solutions to urban flooding. An international panel, which originally included the late Oberlander Prize laureate Kongjian Yu—global champion of the “sponge cities” concept—will dedicate their presentations to his memory for his significant contributions to the field.
The conference will be preceded by a reception on Thursday, December 4, featuring an opening keynote at the SWA Group Los Angeles studio by Lauren Bon, Metabolic Studio in Los Angeles, and followed on Saturday, December 6, by mobile workshops. The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) Southern California chapter is a partner in education.
The presentations on December 5 are free to all California-based students with a valid ID ahd discounted registration is also available for out-of-state students with a valid ID.
Find out more about the event at The Cultural Landscape Foundation