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.

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. 

Recognizing the unprecedented and more frequent climate events that have taken place in Southern California—and internationally; public and private sector interest in exploring sponge cities as a water management tool; the need to tame the Los Angeles River; and, perhaps most critically, the successful voter’s measure that approved “Measure W,” which generates $300 million annually to capture and treat stormwater for water security and improve water quality, Los Angeles is an ideal laboratory to explore advancing water-management and design strategies through a contemporary landscape architecture lens. Taken together, positioning Los Angeles municipalities to become “Water First” cities where water infrastructure is an integral part of creating nature-based solutions for people and nature to coexist.

Panels will look at how the Los Angeles River and water sources, more broadly, have been managed, and the current challenges and solutions being implemented; and, at global strategies and perspectives offered by international leaders in the field.

The presentations on December 5 are free to all California-based students with a valid ID. Please email lily@tclf.org to be registered. Discounted registration is also available for out-of-state students with a valid ID.