The Center for Resilient Cities, newly founded in November 2025 at the Department of Architecture, aims to research and communicate the specific contribution of architecture, urban planning, and landscape architecture to urban resilience. The goal is to combine the various building blocks of resilient adaptation with integrated spatial concepts. Architectural and landscape architectural designs serve as a research strategy for solutions that also take emotional aspects into account and counteract the fear of disasters with a feeling of security.

The international competition “Designing Resilience in Asian Cities (DRIA)” was launched in 2014 by the National University of Singapore to stimulate informed discussion about innovative ideas for strengthening resilience and sustainability in the Asia-Pacific region. This program, which connects ten universities, seeks to critically examine the challenges of climate protection and urbanization. For more than ten years, forward-looking architectural and urban planning concepts as well as innovative technologies have been developed for various tasks to strengthen the resilience of urban communities. This is now running under the title “Designing Resilience Global.” The Department of Architecture at TU Darmstadt, with its focus on design and urban planning (Prof. Dr. Annette Rudolph-Cleff), has been successfully participating in the competition since its inception. In 2026, this will be supported by the newly founded Competence Center Resilient City.

The compact event aims to highlight various aspects of urban resilience. On the one hand, it serves to prepare students participating in the 2026 competition, but it is also open to other interested parties from the fields of architecture, urban planning, landscape architecture, and other disciplines concerned with sustainable urban development and resilient cities.

Resilient Cities

Resilience has become an important issue for cities. Climate change, the pandemic, terrorist attacks, and wars pose significant challenges for cities and their further development. According to UN-Habitat, urban resilience is “the measurable ability of any urban system and its inhabitants to maintain continuity despite shocks and stresses, while at the same time adapting positively and moving towards sustainability.”

Resilience cannot be defined clearly and comprehensively. Different hazards, crises, or risks require different adaptation strategies and transformations. Resilience strategies differ depending on geographical location, political context, economic resources, and cultural factors. This also means that resilience is multidimensional.

We often focus on the technical dimension, for example when considering critical infrastructure. But even when it comes to the function and crisis security of, for example, water supply and disposal, transport, energy, and information infrastructure, there is always a need for social discourse and coordination of the various interests of urban stakeholders. Resilience is not only constructed technically, but also socially. Social acceptance of measures such as climate adaptation increases when they also enhance the attractiveness of an urban area and thus the quality of life for its residents.

Focus on three topics with three presentations and discussions.

• “Resilient city” – dimensions of a challenge
• Research on the “resilient city”
• Contributions of architecture and landscape architecture to the “resilient city”

The exact program will follow in January 2026. The event is free of charge. The venue is the Department of Architecture at TU Darmstadt (Lichtwiese Campus). For further information, please contact Prof. Jörg Dettmar, Center for Resilient Cities.