#94 - Resilient Urban Design: Rethinking Architecture for People & Planet

How should we build to fulfill the needs of society and the planet?

In Grey Hour: Time for a New Architecture, Polish journalist Filip Springer asks fundamental questions about the role of architecture in our lives. His reflections reveal how closely the challenges of the built environment align with the science of resilience.

How we build directly affects the resilience of societies and, by extension, the future of our planet.

Building Community, Not Just Buildings

One of the most effective ways to ensure neighborhood safety is through strong, inclusive communities. Communities where people know one another and are sensitive to each other’s needs. Fences, cameras, and guards do little to build this kind of trust and connection. And yet, they have become defining features of new developments in Warsaw and other large Polish cities.

Springer explains the concept of the 15-minute city, a place where everything you need is within easy reach: shops, schools, parks, clinics, offices. This urban design creates interconnection and convenience. People meet more often, social fabric strengthens, and quality of life improves.

It’s not a radical innovation. Many cities used to be built this way. But today, as we prepare for nearly 70% of the world’s population to live in urban areas by 2050, the design of our mega-cities poses unprecedented challenges.

I live in a neighborhood that was clearly not designed this way. It feels isolated. And yet, changing it now seems nearly impossible — the buildings are up, the infrastructure is in place, and the stakeholders have diverging interests.

Misaligned Interests, Missed Opportunities

These misaligned interests are among the greatest challenges facing the real estate industry. Architects, developers, investors, and policymakers often have short-term goals and different incentives than the people who will actually live in these spaces for decades.

The result is a system without a shared purpose, a fragmented process that rarely considers long-term social and ecological resilience. As Springer notes, the construction industry’s massive impact on climate change is rarely addressed in design conversations, which remain dominated by profit-and-loss considerations. Truly resilient societies reconcile differences through a unifying vision. Right now, we’re far from that.

Why Building Less Might Be More

Springer cites a striking statistic: the real estate sector is responsible for roughly 40% of global CO₂ emissions [1], including construction, operation, and demolition. Nearly a quarter of this is attributed to heating, ventilation, and cooling alone.

Yes, energy efficiency is improving. But it’s largely invisible, overshadowed by the sheer volume of new construction.

So, maybe we should simply build less?

This idea is rarely welcomed by architects and developers, but it's central to the concept of a circular economy: using what we already have, rather than constantly creating new.

Creative Transformation, Not Demolition

Springer highlights the inspiring work of French architecture firm Lacaton & Vassal, known for their creative and pragmatic approach to reusing existing structures. In one project in Bordeaux, they were asked to redesign a public square. But after studying the site, they concluded that no architectural intervention was needed.

Their recommendation?

Their definition of transformation is worth quoting in full:

This approach, resourceful, restorative, and imaginative, is a hallmark of resilient systems. In resilience theory, this is known as bricolage: solving problems with what's at hand. The volume-driven economy of construction is fundamentally at odds with this principle.

Designing for Discomfort

 Daniel A. Barber introduces the concept of the “Comfortocene” — an era defined by the artificial stabilization of indoor conditions through heating, cooling, and ventilation.

No matter the season or location — Poland, Brazil, Sweden, or India — we expect the same stable indoor environment. But Barber warns that the age of discomfort is upon us. As resource constraints tighten, we will need to rethink not only our lifestyles and production models, but also our very definitions of security, solidarity, and comfort.

Back in 2010, Polish politician Donald Tusk faced criticism for stating:

The backlash shows how deeply ingrained our notions of comfort are, and how difficult they are to challenge.

Yet Joanna Erbel, an urban activist and sociologist, offers a more constructive path. She proposes redefining comfort itself, asking what truly serves us, instead of what merely insulates us.

This echoes resilience strategy proposed by Béné and others: adaptive preference. They define it as:

It may, in fact, be a prerequisite for transformation — not only in construction but in other critical systems such as agriculture and food.

A Crisis of the Imagination

This quote captures the spirit of Springer’s book. The social and ecological dimensions of economic activity are neglected not because we lack knowledge but because we lack imagination.

Springer doesn’t offer clear-cut solutions. Instead, he poses inconvenient questions, the kind we urgently need to sit with. Questions about how to build stronger communities, realign stakeholder incentives, transition from volume to value, and redefine comfort in the face of scarcity.

These questions are at the heart of resilient thinking. And they’re at the heart of any meaningful attempt to build a future worth living in.

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References and Notes

[1] – According to Springer. The book does not provide a reference for this figure, and I have not independently verified it, so it should be taken with caution.

 [2] – Pingault and Martius refer to this as a fifth resilience strategy, beyond the four typically presented in the literature: persistence, recovery, adaptation, and transformation. In many areas, including agriculture and construction, this strategy may actually be a prerequisite for transformation.

Pingault N and Martius C. 2024. Resilience thinking: A review of key concepts. Occasional Paper 16. Bogor, Indonesia: CIFOR; Nairobi, Kenya: ICRAF.

Springer, F. (2024). Szara godzina. Czas na nową architekturę [Grey hour: Time for a new architecture]. Karakter.