IN-PERSON London. Section B

Abstract

In the contemporary built environment practice, adjectives ‘sustainable’ and ‘resilient’ are often used interchangeably, in most cases to market environmental credentials of a project or a process. These concepts however differ in their objectives and ways to achieve them. Sustainability focusses on realizing a complete solution that is thought to resolve social, economic, and environmental problems; resilience is about creating conditions for advantageous adaptation to changing social, economic, and environmental circumstances. In addition, while city planners concentrate on the city’s defensive properties—its ability to survive natural events— as well as topics of social and economic resilience, the focus on the role of urban form is less explored. Resilience in urban design, as an explicitly defined focus of inquiry is a rather new field. In parallel with other disciplines, resilience has often been relegated to the issues of risk management in urban design, or a dimension of sustainability, with their inherently equilibrium-centered focus. Additionally, the “resilient cities” moniker often tilts disproportionately toward disaster recovery and biophilia where a detailed understanding and capacity of urban form is missing. In this paper we analyze design principles and practices rooted in urban design through the lens of resilience. We focus on how to practically address the need for resilience through incorporating specific urban design solutions and patterns that foster continuous adaptation and evolution of places.