Urbanie & Urbanus

Issue 2022 Dec

Resilient cities

Editor’s Note

‘MAKE CITIES AND HUMAN SETTLEMENTS INCLUSIVE, SAFE, RESILIENT AND SUSTAINABLE.’ (UNITED NATIONS SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOAL NO.11)

The concept of resilience has been used for more than a decade in ever-widening intervention fields and it has assumed ever-wider meanings that have made its applications and measurements uncertain and ambiguous. Some authors refer to “resilient thinking” more as a useful idea to draw guidelines and concepts, rather than a more rigorous and strategic approach. The application of resilient thinking in spatial and urban planning terms is rather recent and less well covered.

This issue seeks to address this with a diverse collection of papers from 6 universities across Hong Kong and China, with critical thinking for sustainable and resilient urban design strategies, environmental development and responsive environments. These include two papers – ‘Technical Resilience’ and ‘Institutional Resilience’ by Xiaoyang Zhang and Shifu Wang from South China University of Technology , ‘Evaluation of Ecosystem Services in Macao Based InVEST Model’ by Chen Tian, Wang Mengyuan and Liu Junna from Tianjin University, focusing on how we may define the objectives and intervention strategies for sustainable spatial development.

These are followed by six papers from University of Hong Kong, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and City University of Hong Kong has been issued. The 6 papers offer a range of perspectives on the topic of resilience using adaptive flood resilient cities, accessibility to Hong Kong’s waterfront development, Carbon-Neutral Campuses for sustainable university, Dementia-Friendly Public Housing Development and the value of edible community gardens for the elderly, The Hong Kong-Mainland China Border and Boundary, Everyday life along a regenerated urban river in Shenzhen, and Environmentally Mitigated River Channelization on Agriculture. The paper content of the issue concludes with an article that contains a selection of projects focused on a sustainable and resilient future-orientated workplace design that engages with the particular site context and terrain of Hong Kong Island, the output of Bachelors of Architecture students from Chinese University of Hong Kong.

With evolving thinking towards planning, design and management strategies, with bottom-up solutions, the issue highlights how the next generation of urban designers and architects are approaching the spatial, territorial and environmental complexity of providing a resilient and responsive built environment.