Amongst other vectors of change, the development of cities as complex socio-technical-environmental systems is influenced by two notable driving forces: the accelerated development of smart city technologies enabled by the abundance pervasiveness of Big Data and the challenge of resilience to an increasing number of shocks and stresses driven by climate change and urbanisation. Recognising potential synergies between these two driving forces, the paper explores ways in which Big Data can contribute to the translation of systemic resilience targets into principles of spatial transformation and, as a result, to a better evidence base for urban design and planning decisions. To that end, the paper discusses the relationship between Big Data, urban design and planning, and urban resilience. It highlights how resilience-building is enabled by Big Data through, such as evidence-based design, spatial data visualisation and cross-scalar design. The paper also provides an overview of challenges that are brough by Big Data to urban resilience-building. The discussion ends with how Big-Data-driven urban resilience can be an approach that is complementary rather than alternative to traditional practices.@en

Designing Systems for Informed Resilience Engineering’ (DeSIRE) is an extensive interdisciplinary research programme that shapes the 4TU Centre for Resilience Engineering (4TU RE Centre) and builds its capacity. Our understanding of resilience goes beyond robustness of infrastructure; we focus on resilience as the ability of coupled social-technical-environmental (STE) systems to absorb, react, recover, adapt and reorganize with change. Our mission is to advance and consolidate the understanding of resilience thinking, measuring resilience, and resilience coordination and governance. This mission statement conveys the 4TU RE community approach to resilience and the premises upon which this approach makes a difference.@en

The issue of urban resilience concerns a multitude of urban systems and spaces. This thesis focuses on Urban River Corridors (URCs)—that is, urban spaces where the overlap between the urban systems (carrying the ’social-‘) and the river system (carrying the ‘-ecological’) is at the highest intensity—as strategic spaces with a potentially high contribution to urban resilience. The general hypothesis is that with an integrated spatial understanding, planning and design of rivers and the urban fabric surrounding them, cities could become more resilient not just to flood-related disturbances, but to general chronic stresses as well. Hence, the thesis addresses four spatial problems arising from the loss of synergy between the natural dynamics of rivers and the spatial configuration and composition of urban areas that they cross: (1) river-taming operations combined with riverside traffic corridors have weakened the relationship between fluvial geomorphology and urban morphology, transforming rivers into physical barriers; (2) flood-protection measures aiming for resistance to water dynamics have led to a latent flood risk; (3) the capacity of urban rivers to deliver ecosystem services has been diminished; and (4) rationalisations of the river system have reduced the scalar, (and implicitly) social and ecological complexity of urban rivers. Drawing on theories of social-ecological resilience and urban form resilience, on conceptual and analytical tools from spatial morphology and landscape ecology, and on practical experience in urban river design projects, the thesis constructs a theory of social-ecologically integrated Urban River Corridors, in which it proposes a spatial-morphological definition, an assessment framework, and a set of design principles and design instruments. Framed as a transdisciplinary design study, the thesis integrates knowledge from various disciplines dealing with the problematique of urban rivers and employs a design-driven methodology that includes design explorations and design testing in the research process. The case of Bucharest crossed by URC Dâmbovița and URC Colentina is used to contextualise the spatial-morphological definition, and to demonstrate, develop and test the proposed assessment framework, design principles, and design instruments with a distinct set of methods in each of the three parts of the thesis. In addition to a transdisciplinary literature review of URCs, and a historical review of Bucharest’s URCs, Part 1 presents a qualitative data analysis of 22 expert interviews, used to determine the current state of URC Dâmbovița and URC Colentina. Based on four key properties of URCs identified in literature, Part 2 develops an indicator system and a method for the assessment of social-ecological integration. Informed by key problems and potentials identified by the local experts, the assessment framework is then applied on the two URCs of Bucharest. In the last part, design applications, including urban river projects carried out by the author on other rivers and a design workshop in Bucharest, are used to demonstrate and test the design principles through design instruments. @en

This paper describes an assessment of the effects of spatial heterogeneity on the future performance and resilience of an urban area. For this, indicators of environmental performance and resilience of critical infrastructures (energy and transportation systems) are explored. The approach combines established methodologies of building performance simulation, energy systems analysis, and environmental impact assessment of buildings and transportation systems. The study is centered on future urban design scenarios for an industrial neighborhood in Switzerland. For this case study, multi-functionality is proportional to the performance and resilience of critical infrastructures. Mono-functionality improves the resilience and performance of energy systems with a negative effect on that of transportation systems. Building intensity, and resource intensive users were found to play a higher role into the future performance and resilience of the area. The findings of this research could complement planning approaches of sustainable and resilient urban areas.@en

Cities can be seen as systems of organized complexity formed by interrelated and highly dynamic sub-systems. This paper reflects on the interactions and tensions between socio-ecological and/or socio-technical sub-systems in cities and their capacity to either improve or block urban processes. In this context, spatial heterogeneity could enhance or hinder the performance and resilience of critical urban sub-systems such as transport and energy. The consequence of this interaction might be detrimental to environmental quality (air and acoustic) and the livability of urban areas. This rationale may improve political and expert decision-making processes toward sustainable, resilient and livable cities.@en

Landscape architecture, landscape urbanism, and urbanism provide a number of tools, methods, and techniques for the design of the built and unbuilt urban landscape. The interplay of these techniques is left up to the designers, and the resulting range of projects associated with the terms is broad and inconsistent. This paper proposes Urban Scaffolding as a way to reconfigure existing practices into a flexible, scalable, repeatable, and compact design mechanism that simultaneously discovers and intervenes in a territory. The method was developed through design projects that focused on reconnecting the urban and natural landscape by means of topological strategies. Two of these projects will be used as examples in this paper.@en