Articulating a social-ecological resilience agenda for urban design

In an era of change and uncertainty, the need for resilience is high on urban agendas. To date, multiple resilience concepts have been adopted into urban design with minimal substantiation. Resilience theory can potentially improve practice by rebalancing contemporary discourses in order to better value procedural aspects of urban design. The paper establishes theoretical links between urban design and resilience, where the integration of social and ecological systems, and the ability to enable adaptability and transformability, are key. In pursuit of shared principles between the two fields, a literature review identifies cross-cutting themes of diversity, social capital, innovation and learning.