Wei Yang OBE (born 1974) is a Chinese-British town planner and urban designer, an author and a scholar.[1] She is the founder of Wei Yang & Partners[2] and Co-founder of the Digital Task Force for Planning[3] in London. She is a leading figure in researching, promoting, and implementing the 21st Century Garden City approach[4] and fostering joined up thinking between different built and natural environment professionals.[5]
Yang was president of the Royal Town Planning Institute for 2021.[6] She champions a revival of spirit for a modernised planning profession[7] to tackle the global challenges in a systemic way, and thus to achieve collective wellbeing and fulfilment for all.
In 2004, while writing up her PhD thesis, Yang pursued her planning career in Britain in a Milton Keynes based planning practice David Lock Associates. In 2011, she founded Wei Yang & Partners[18] in London, which provides integrated master planning solutions and promotes best practices worldwide. In particular, the practice supports and fosters knowledge transfer between practice and research.[19]
In 2011, Yang initiated self-funded research on 21st Century Garden City, which captures the essence of the original Garden City ideas, but adapts them to a more complex, 21st-century context, promoting sustainability, tackling climate change and utilising smart technologies. The initiative was well ahead of the UK government's Garden City Proposal in 2014.[20] The research had led to the success of Wei Yang & Partners in winning the Wolfson Economics Finalist Prize in 2014.[21] The competition final report, New Garden Cities: Visionary, Economically Viable and Popular[22] was referred to in The Lyons Housing Review: Mobilising Across the Nation to Build the Homes our Children Need.[23] In the field of practical work, Wei Yang & Partners have delivered many master planning projects in the UK and China utilising 21st Century Garden City approach.[24]
Wei Yang
Yang is also a key figure in promoting green & low-carbon development approach in China. From 2013 to 2016, she served as the Co-chair[25] of the UK-China Eco-Cities & Green Building Group.[26] Between 2013 and 2014, she was seconded by the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) as British Principal Planning Expert to advise the Chinese Ministry of Housing & Urban-Rural Development (MoHURD) on sustainable urbanisation. She also gave expert advice to Progressing Eco-City Policies into Mainstream Practice in China project[27] in 2012, and ‘the Europe-China Eco-Cities Link (EC-Link)’ project[28] in 2013. From 2015 to 2017, she led the UK-China pilot project on ‘the Green & Low-Carbon Development of Small Towns in China’,[29] and was the lead author of The Technical Manual for Green & Low-Carbon Development of Small Towns in China.[30]
In 2014, Yang was elected as a World Cities Summit Young Leader[31] by Singapore, and was named as the Planner's Women of Influence in 2017,[32] 2018.[33]
In September 2019, Yang was elected by RTPI members as vice president for 2020.[34] In her Manifesto, she stated that ‘I want to champion a revival of spirit for our profession by enhancing public appreciation, strengthening international collaboration on capacity building, and contributing to immediate actions on the climate and biodiversity emergency. I am also keen to do more to engage young planners and adopt new technologies to empower the modernisation.’[35]
In August 2020, several suggestions Yang made to the Chinese Ministry of Natural Resources was adopted in their consultation paper - Planning Guidance for Metropolitan Areas (August 2020) including: 'A strategic and long-term urban-rural integrated approach; A single digital base map containing all-natural, ecological, socio-economic, demographic, cultural & heritage, infrastructure, pollution, agricultural, climate change impact, and hazards information; An emphasis on the public service purpose of planning and strengthening public engagement; Urban design and place-making to be embedded in the whole plan-making process; Integration of a blue & green landscape framework in urban developments, bringing the beauty of nature into cities, developing distinctive local characters; Creating pedestrian friendly walkable neighbourhoods, and human-scale public open spaces.'[36]
Yang was inaugurated as RTPI President on 20 January 2021. In her Presidential Inaugural Address,[7] Yang said ‘The fundamental objective of the planning profession is to create a balanced system for People, Nature and Society to co-exist in harmony’; ‘I believe compassion and selflessness are the moral foundations of our profession’; 'We need a reimagining of planning, thinking beyond professional boundaries and the present day'.
Yang formed Digital Task Force for Planning[3] in early 2021 with Professor Michael Batty, Chairman of Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, University College London. The mission of the Task Force is to promote an integrated digitally informed approach to Town & Country Planning. The Task Force examined 'how the planning profession and its education can embrace the digital revolution in a more thorough and proactive way to empower planners with new skills to tackle the grand challenges of our times for public interest'.[3] The Task Force Report, A Digital Future for Planning – Spatial Planning Reimagined (Batty & Yang, 2022) [37] outlined blueprint for digital transformation of spatial planning and the sector's future.[38] Keen for a shift to a ‘whole systems’ approach to tackle the grand challenges, the report put digitally enabled spatial planning at the forefront. Emphasis is placed on planners' leadership and collaboration with like-minded professionals across the built and natural environment sectors to achieve common goals.[38]
Yang co-authored Humanistic Pure Land and Garden Cities (2021) with Venerable Ru Chuang, Director of Fo Guang Shan Buddha Museum during 2020 COVID19 lockdown. Venerable Ru Chuang wrote Humanistic Pure Land; Yang wrote Garden Cities. The book revealed the moral connections between the philosophies of Garden Cities and Humanistic Buddhism. The book became Taiwan best seller number one after its publication in November 2021.[39] The income of the book was donated to Fo Guang Shan Education Foundation to fund education for children from disadvantaged background.[39]
In June 2023, Yang was elected as the first female Chair of the Construction Industry Council (CIC) and the first Chair born outside the UK and Ireland.[9]
In September 2024, Yang was appointed to the UK Government's New Towns Taskforce,[12] an independent expert advisory panel established to support the government in delivering the next generation of new towns.
Board Trustee, Milton Keynes City Discovery Centre (2010-2022)
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