Track 3.1: Designing Future Ready Cities

Rapid urbanization, population growth, and the escalating effects of climate change are placing unprecedented strain on cities across the globe. Numerous studies have examined the environmental challenges urban areas face, as well as their broader impact on global ecological systems. Since the Industrial Revolution, urbanization has driven not only geographical and physical transformation, but also profound implications for public health, ecological stability, and spatial equity. In response, the pursuit of urban sustainability has become central to policy and design discourse. Yet, given the complexity and scale of contemporary urban problems, this pursuit often appears Sisyphean. While “visual pollution” from homogenized global architectural trends is increasingly visible in urban landscapes, environmental injustices remain obscured and less perceptible to the public. This disconnect underscores a broader failure to recognize the dynamic and co-evolving nature of ecosystems and the built environment. This paper introduces the concept of “breathing cities”, an interdisciplinary framework that reimagines urban sustainability through the convergence of vernacular urban knowledge and digital spatial technologies. The framework positions cities as adaptive, porous, ecologically attuned, and health-cantered systems. By moving beyond static, technocratic models, “breathing cities” proposes a dynamic vision for sustainable urbanism, one that integrates material, spatial, technological, and ecological dimensions. To explore this, the research employs a comparative case study methodology, supported by archival research, spatial analysis, and theoretical interpretation. Case studies were selected based on their diverse climatic conditions, socio-cultural contexts, global representation, and varying approaches to sustainability, from low-tech vernacular systems to advanced digital urban models. The study examines cities such as Singapore, with its integration of nature-based design and digital governance; Copenhagen, as a leader in blue-green infrastructure and carbon-neutral planning; and experimental cities like Masdar City and The Line, which rely on AI-driven systems and renewable technologies. In parallel, historical and vernacular urban models from regions such as Yemen, Morocco, and India are analysed for their emphasis on passive climatic adaptation, spatial porosity, and material resilience. The paper identifies and translates key vernacular strategies such as climate responsiveness, material adaptability, and ecological embeddedness into principles that can inform digital design interventions. Tools such as environmental sensing, responsive architecture, and digital twins are explored for their capacity to simulate, adapt, and enhance urban-environmental interactions. In doing so, the research proposes a methodology that is both analytical, in tracing historical and contemporary practices, and projective, in guiding future urban design. By bridging indigenous urban knowledge with emerging technologies, the “breathing cities” framework contributes to a more resilient, equitable, and climate-sensitive urbanism. It challenges the artificial separation between city and nature by repositioning urban space as an integral organ within the planetary system. Drawing on theoretical perspectives such as spatial production and post-anthropocentric urbanism, the study calls for a paradigm shift: from cities as objects of control to cities as responsive, co-evolving ecosystems. Ultimately, this paper contributes to a new urban sustainability discourse that reconnects environmental stewardship, social justice, and technological innovation. It provides a scalable and context-sensitive approach for rethinking how cities can adapt to the challenges of the 21st century, not by abandoning tradition or over-relying on technology, but by weaving them into an integrated, living urban fabric.

Amidst growing climate instability and resource scarcity, dense urban environments—particularly those undergoing vertical expansion—must reassess how spatial configurations contribute to long-term resilience (Zhang et al., 2024). In many cities across hot-summer–cold-winter or arid climatic zones, high-rise typologies dominate redevelopment strategies yet remain vulnerable to energy intensiveness, structural pressure, and weak environmental integration. This study develops a parametric form-exploration workflow for early-phase design of high-rise urban groups, focusing on how morphologies can be shaped under multiple, often conflicting, performance constraints (D’Agostino et al., 2021). Rather than offering post-design assessments, the method integrates environmental simulation and structural feedback directly into the generation of design options, providing a framework to evaluate spatial configurations through a climate-adaptive lens. The approach centers around a prototype scenario: a conceptual cluster of office towers situated in a dense urban block typical of redevelopment zones in East Asia. Using a suite of modular analysis models, the workflow evaluates how varying tower geometries influence indicators of operational energy intensity, passive solar access, wind flow dynamics, and lateral displacement under load conditions (Zhang et al., 2023). Rather than simulating exhaustive samples, a machine learning-assisted surrogate model guides the optimisation, accelerating convergence toward promising candidates. Results of the exploration revealed that performance gains across different metrics are not always co-aligned. Geometries that improve load-bearing distribution and airflow buffering, for instance, may underperform in solar exposure, leading to notable trade-offs in potential photovoltaic yield. Conversely, envelope shapes maximising solar access may incur increased structural deflection or create wind corridors with problematic comfort zones at pedestrian level. Through this comparative landscape, the workflow highlights the dynamic tensions inherent in designing towers that must perform across energy, comfort, and structural axes. Instead of relying on fixed evaluation parameters, the system operates with flexible boundary conditions and iterative recalibration. This enables urban designers and architects to visually navigate a design space where performance contours are mapped against shape parameters—not after the fact, but as an embedded part of design authorship. By linking microclimatic conditions to volumetric manipulation, the framework offers a strategic pathway for integrating urban morphology with local environmental logics. Importantly, while grounded in East Asian urban form studies, the methodological insights are transferable. Cities across the Middle East, for example, face similar spatial typologies and design imperatives—rapid vertical growth, high solar intensity, extreme summer heat, and limited envelope flexibility due to plot constraints (Wang, 2011). In such contexts, anticipatory spatial design frameworks that integrate energy, structure, and environment at the early stage can support more robust urban resilience agendas.This research contributes a cross-scale methodology linking building-level form-making to broader urban adaptation strategies. By reframing high-rise development not only as an architectural challenge but as a component of climate-responsive planning, it underscores how generative design tools can serve as mediators between technical analysis and spatial imagination. References D’Agostino, D., D’Agostino, P., Minelli, F., Minichiello, F., 2021. Proposal of a new automated workflow for the computational performance-driven design optimization of building energy need and construction cost. Energy and Buildings 239, 110857. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enbuild.2021.110857 Wang, J., 2011. Urban Design(3rd ed). Southeast University, Nanjing. Zhang, R., Xu, X., Liu, K., Kong, L., Wang, W., Wortmann, T., 2024. Airflow modelling for building design: A designers’ review. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 197, 114380. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2024.114380 Zhang, R., Xu, X., Zhai, P., Liu, K., Kong, L., Wang, W., 2023. Agile and integrated workflow proposal for optimising energy use, solar and wind energy potential, and structural stability of high-rise buildings in early design decisions. Energy and Buildings 113692. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enbuild.2023.113692

Urban education systems in African cities are under mounting pressure due to the convergence of rapid urbanisation and intensifying climate events such as floods, droughts, and heatwaves. In countries like South Africa, Ghana, Tanzania, and Malawi, schools are facing physical damage, unsafe learning environments, and prolonged closures, especially in informal settlements. The spatial inequalities in infrastructure, services, and governance contribute to the decline in learning outcomes due to the impacts of climate change Understanding the spatial dimensions of climate risk in education is critical for planning adaptive, inclusive, and resilient urban futures for children in vulnerable urban communities. This study investigates how spatial planning can support the development of climate-resilient education systems in African cities exposed to extreme weather events. This is based on understanding how geospatial tools and planning frameworks can be leveraged to assess, prioritise, and reduce climate risks to educational infrastructure and learning outcomes. The research aims to generate evidence-based, spatially informed strategies that can influence school infrastructure planning, policy integration, and broader urban resilience initiatives in African cities. The research draws on data from the BAOBAB synthesis initiative, a collaborative project by Open Development & Education and ASCEND at the University of Cape Town. Methods include geospatial analysis, climate risk mapping, school infrastructure assessments, and policy reviews across South Africa, Ghana, Tanzania, and Malawi. Stakeholder engagement workshops were conducted with ministries of education, development partners (such as UNICEF, World Bank), and city planners to translate research into action. Comparative case study analysis was used to identify patterns of risk and resilience and inform context-specific planning recommendations. The study reveals that climate risks to education infrastructure in African cities are not only growing but are highly spatialised, with schools in informal settlements and flood-prone zones being the most vulnerable. Geospatial mapping uncovered significant infrastructure deficits in high-risk areas, while policy reviews highlighted the limited integration of education needs within urban climate adaptation plans. Collaborative engagement with education ministries and development actors led to the development of practical planning tools, including a spatial vulnerability index for schools, guidance for climate-sensitive site selection, and design templates for low-cost, resilient retrofitting. These findings underscore the potential of spatial planning to act as a bridge between education policy, climate resilience, and urban governance. Rather than treating schools as isolated infrastructure, the research advocates for their inclusion within broader city resilience strategies—linking education investment decisions to hazard exposure, service accessibility, and demographic growth. This integrated approach contributes to both theory and practice by positioning spatial planning as a central mechanism for social infrastructure resilience in the Global South. For practitioners, the study offers actionable pathways to enhance the adaptive capacity of education systems, including data-driven planning, participatory infrastructure design, and cross-sector collaboration. For theory, it expands the discourse on climate resilience by embedding educational access and continuity within urban spatial justice frameworks. The approach is transferable and scalable to other rapidly urbanising contexts facing climate risks.

Public space plays a crucial role in the attractiveness, quality and liveability of the city centre. Today, it is often insufficiently prepared for the changing climate. The city of Arnhem has approximately 170.000 inhabitants. It is characterized by a historic city centre, divided into a medieval and a reconstruction part. The inner city is lacking greenery except for the Veluwe around the city and a stream that is partly reopened. The city centre heats up quickly and is the hottest place in Arnhem, additionally there is flooding during heavy rainfall. Its appearance also leaves much to be desired. The mishmash of materials, furniture, styles and overly paved surfaces means Arnhem’s distinctive green DNA is insufficiently visible. The city’s ambition is to make Arnhem ‘the coolest city centre in the Netherlands’, addressing the various tasks that come together in the city centre. Our design and planning office OMGEVING from Belgium was appointed by the city to draw up the vision for the public space in the city centre. After analysing the city’s identity, public space, mobility and climate (flood risk, heat stress, wind, greenery), we created together with the municipality and different local experts and organisations a vision for greening and cooling the city centre. This vision strengthens the identity, puts pedestrians first, focuses on social interaction, increases accessibility and is climate resilient. The vision is multi-layered: attractive entrances to the city centre, central vibrant zone, waterfront, cool network, types of places (city court, square, hidden (roof) garden) and types of streets (shopping street, restaurant/bar street, residential street, mixed street). The cool network is one of the different layers and consists of new sheltered, shaded routes and cool spots and passes by crucial locations in the city that have a clear climate challenge (heat, flooding, etc.). Another layer distinguishes types of places and streets. By thorough greening of public spaces (streets, inner areas, roofs, etc.), the temperature in the city centre can drop. In this way, not only the quality of life increases but the identity of the city centre is also positively stimulated. The green DNA of Arnhem thus becomes visible again in the city centre. For every location in Arnhem there are guiding principles, formed by these different layers. This has resulted in a toolbox with guidelines to implement the vision at two levels: the entire inner city and per type of street and place. The toolbox contains the ambition, makes proposals for high-quality paving and planting and design elements such as furniture, lighting, cooling, playing and other creative elements. This always takes into account the Arnhem DNA. Reference projects visualise good examples and are meant as inspiration. In a next step we want to talk more about how to make a city centre more resilient to climate change in the presentation at the congress and in the accompanying paper.

1. Background: Climate change has intensified the risks posed by extreme urban heat. Urban planning now faces a dual challenge: enhancing climate resilience while avoiding added ecological burdens from redevelopment. Urban Ventilation Corridors (UVCs), as a nature-based solution (NBS), offer a low-cost and ecological approach to mitigate heat stress and improve microclimates. However, past studies face two major research gaps: insufficient characterization of the dual aerodynamic effects of vegetation (wind-blocking and wind-guiding), and a lack of systematic and ecological perspectives in planning UVCs. This study proposes a novel technical framework for incorporating vegetation into the planning of the Urban Ventilation Corridor Network (UVCN). 2. Relevance to the Congress Themes: This study closely aligns with Track 3: Adaptation of Dynamic Cities to Extreme Climatic Conditions. Using Nanjing, China, as a case study, this research integrates 3D vegetation–building morphology and terrain to construct a ventilation resistance model. Based on ventilation resistance, a multi-tiered UVCN composed of primary and local ventilation corridors is developed using the least-cost path (LCP) method, integrating multi-source data including atmospheric conditions, heat and cool island effects, vegetation morphology, and population dynamics. The study further quantifies the contribution of vegetation—as a core component of Nature-based Solutions (NBS)—to ventilation performance by comparing scenarios with and without vegetation. In contexts of extreme heat and limited spatial flexibility, vegetation is positioned as an actively adjustable variable in urban ventilation planning. This research thus offers a climate-responsive planning strategy that enhances corridor functionality and supports the spatial localization of global climate goals. 3. Contribution to Planning or Policy-Making Practice: (1) Reshaping planning cognition: integrating 3D vegetation morphology into climate-adaptive design. This study quantitatively demonstrates, through controlled experiments, that 3D vegetation morphology—specifically its height, spatial distribution, and porosity—is a critical variable in identifying Urban Ventilation Corridor Network (UVCN) paths. The findings challenge the long-standing neglect of vegetation structure in planning practices and provide a scientific basis for micro-scale interventions in high-density built-up areas within the context of stock-based urban transformation. This work also supports the incorporation of 3D vegetation indicators into technical guidelines for UVCN planning. (2) Providing planning tools: a multilevel framework for UVCN identification and diagnosis. A replicable framework is proposed for planners that integrates 3D urban morphology with multi-source datasets to support the hierarchical planning of UVCNs composed of primary and local corridors. The method enables zoning of ventilation control areas, diagnosis of corridor discontinuities (connectivity assessment), and identification of underperforming blue–green spaces (lacking compensatory wind function), thereby informing spatial intervention priorities. In the Nanjing case study, four primary and four local ventilation corridors were identified, with connectivity evaluations revealing a wind-blocking barrier on the southwest slope of Purple Mountain. (3) Supporting future development: a foundational framework for dynamic monitoring. The proposed analytical method is compatible with dynamic vegetation models, offering a foundation for real-time monitoring and periodic assessment of UVCNs. It enables the integration of green space structural adjustments with seasonal climate responses, laying the groundwork for intelligent, climate-responsive spatial governance.

Managing the urban heat island effect under accelerating climate extremes urgently requires resilience-oriented building retrofits. This paper provides a systematic review of the dynamic research progress in the field of carbon assessment of building retrofits, focusing on how it can empower the construction of Climate-Adaptive Cities (CACs). By critically reviewing dynamic studies at the design level and at the whole life cycle level, it reveals that there are serious limitations of current models in quantifying the dynamic carbon benefits of climate change response of retrofitting: the existing dynamic studies (e.g., DLCA) focus on the dynamics of environmental parameters (e.g., energy, technology), and have little understanding of the functional evolution of the building itself, user needs, and the impact of the building's design on the environment. Insufficient attention has been paid to the evolution of building ontology functions and the constant multiple retrofit processes driven by user demands; the cumulative carbon emissions during the retrofit construction phase and its frequent impacts are generally ignored in the system boundary setting, leading to a poor adaptation to the retrofit real-life scenarios. To bridge these gaps, we propose a dual-dynamic framework integrating dynamic life cycle continuity and dynamic iterative retrofit processes, establishing a theoretical foundation for tracking long-term retrofit carbon benefits. Crucially, it connects localized actions with city-scale resilience through two pathways: Aggregating retrofits to form cooling networks, guiding spatial planning of blue-green infrastructure corridors; Identifying high-impact zones for prioritizing resource allocation, enabling sequenced climate adaptation and transforming static plans into resilience-focused strategies. This review demonstrates that dynamic carbon assessment is a critical link between global climate commitments and localized adaptation actions, enabling the quantification of microclimate co-benefits and the prioritization of resources based on science and data. The dual dynamic framework proposed in this paper provides a foundation for advancing low-carbon practices and enhancing the spatial resilience of dynamic cities.

With the intensification of global warming in recent years, extreme heat events have occurred with increasing frequency and intensity, necessitating the exploration of effective urban strategies against extreme heat. At the planning and design level, urban form exerts potential influence on urban thermal resilience through mechanisms such as the Street Canyon Effect, yet its operational mechanisms remain inadequately elucidated. Simultaneously, block—as fundamental units of urban design—play a crucial role in shaping urban thermal environments. Investigating the impact mechanisms of urban form on thermal resilience at this scale holds significant implications for sustainable urban planning under global warming. This study focuses on the block scale to reveal variations in thermal resilience across different urban forms under warming scenarios. It analyzes the impact mechanisms, magnitude, and synergistic effects of morphological elements on urban thermal environments under extreme heat conditions, thereby providing quantitative decision-making support for climate-adaptive planning. This study adopts the summer extreme heat conditions of Chongqing as the climatic background, where the city experiences the longest duration of extreme high temperatures in China. Employing a spatial-climatic integrated urban design approach, four urban form variables—building density, building height, green space ratio, and underlying surface materials—were selected and combined at the block scale. A matrix of models was constructed using ENVI-met, followed by simulations under three warming scenarios: the current baseline, RCP8.5 for 2035, and RCP8.5 for 2050. The thermal environment was characterized by microclimatic indicators (air temperature, humidity, wind speed) and thermal comfort indices (PET, UTCI), with further analysis conducted via machine learning. Through multi-scenario simulations, this study reveals nonlinear regulatory patterns of block scale urban form on thermal resilience. Results indicate differential contributions of morphological elements to thermal resilience under warming scenarios. Diurnal heating and nocturnal cooling rates in spaces with varying height-to-width ratios are influenced by thermal entrapment effects, exhibiting variations across warming scenarios. As warming intensifies, the impact of underlying surfaces on urban thermal resilience progressively increases, with material-specific albedo differences driving divergent influence magnitudes, whereas the thermal mitigation efficacy of green spaces continuously diminishes. The study further uncovers synergistic mechanisms among morphological elements: high building density reduces the cooling efficiency of green spaces, yet coordinated design integrating greenery with high-albedo underlying surfaces effectively improves daytime thermal environments. Consequently, priority regulation of highly sensitive morphological elements, partitioned strategies addressing diurnal-nocturnal thermal differences, and reservation of flexible adjustment spaces for climatic uncertainties in planning are recommended. This research quantifies the impacts of urban morphological elements and their interactions under warming scenarios. The simulation-based spatial-climatic integrated urban design approach provides an urban-scale explanatory tool for climate resilience research and validates the feasibility of dynamically adapting spatial elements to climatic targets. Prospectively, proactive planning interventions can enhance urban climate adaptation capacities, promoting equitable benefits of planning technologies for climate-vulnerable regions.