Landscape Architecture Australia — February 2018

Landscape

Architecture

Frontiers

—
Published Beijing, China
Founded 2013
Editor Kongjian Yu, chief editor
Tina Tian, executive editor (below)

Landscape Architecture Australia — How

long has your journal been published, and

how does its future look?

Tina Tian — Landscape Architecture

Frontiers (LA Frontiers) was first published

in 2013. The journal is published bimonthly

in both English and Chinese by the

Graduate School of Landscape Architecture

at Peking University and Higher Education

Press, with Professor Kongjian Yu as the

chief editor. The audience includes

professional landscape architects, planners,

governors and students majoring in

landscape architecture, urban design,

planning and the arts.

LA Frontiers received an honour award in

the communications category of the 2015

ASLA Professional Awards, and has been

selected a s a n Emerg ing Sources Citat ion

Index (ESCI) journal. In the future, LA

Frontiers will further act as a bridge

connecting research and social needs,

science and art, leading the development

of the discipline.

LAA — Which edition has been your most

successful?

TT — There are two issues that have been

particularly successful, the first being

“Sponge City” (no. 14, 2015). In 2014 the

Chinese Ministry of Housing and Urban-

Rural Development published a technical

guide to encourage “sponge city”

construction methods to be used

throughout China. Sponge cities are urban

loca lit ies w it h hig h levels of resilienc y in

the face of environmental change and

potential natural disasters. They have

integrated water infrastructure that

absorbs, retains and filters stormwater.

Through greater construction of sponge

cities, the risk of urban flooding can be

reduced, water pollutants can be lessened

and urban biodiversity increased and

protected. In our “Sponge City” issue we

focused on internationally leading theories

and pioneering practice, exploring models

and strategies for building better sponge

cities in China.

The other particularly successful issue

is “Novel Ecosystems” (no. 19, 2016). The

twenty-first century is already known for

unprecedented and fundamental changes

and new trajectories – think climate change,

global economics, migration and

population growth. The world is now

predominantly urban and will become

increasingly so until mid-century, when

g loba l popu lat ion is ex pected to stabilize

at around 70 percent urban. The world

has entered a new geological era, the

Anthropocene, in which the impacts

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AN ASIAN PRACTICE