Resilient by Design : Urban Systems, Policy, and Community Engagement

In the face of increasing climate disruption, this book provides a design-centered investigation of how cities might adapt, recover, and prosper. It positions resilience not as a technical add-on, but as a fundamentally social, ecological, and spatial practice that must be embedded across scales, from materials and buildings to neighbourhoods, infrastructures, and urban systems.

The chapters show how climatic threats including heat, flooding, water scarcity, and catastrophic shocks are changing our conception of urban space in a variety of worldwide situations. The contributions demonstrate how nature-based solutions, water-sensitive planning, circular construction, and regenerative urbanism are now inextricably linked to resilient design. They also show how new technologies like geographic simulation, XR environments, and digital twins are increasing the designer's ability to foresee unpredictability and test flexible solutions before putting them into practice.

The main issue addressed is evident: urban development practice still has difficulty converting resilience concepts into spatial, material, and community-grounded design activity, even in the face of increased awareness of climate risk. In response, this book compiles experimental techniques, conceptual developments, and empirical research that show how resilience may be operationalized in actual projects and locations. It focuses on transferable tactics that can influence professional practice, education, and policy, such as regenerative neighbourhood models, nature-based drainage, climate-responsive public spaces, and circular recovery.

Resilient by Design ultimately argues that the future of cities depends on re-aligning ecological systems, technological innovation, and social inclusion through design thinking. It provides an interdisciplinary knowledge base and a forward-looking agenda for shaping climate-ready urban environments. The book is intended for researchers, urban designers, architects, planners, landscape architects, and policymakers engaged in climate-resilient and sustainable urban development.

Ali CHESHMEHZANGI is a Professor and Head of the School of Architecture, Design and Planning (ADP) at The University of Queensland. He has been in the World’s top 2% field leader since 2021, recognised by Stanford University. He is among the top 20 global scholars in the urban sustainability research area. With a career spanning over two decades, he has made significant contributions to the academic and professional communities, with a focus on sustainable and environmentally conscious design. So far, Ali has published over 650 journal papers, articles, conference papers, book chapters, and reports. He also has 60 other academic books, some of which have received awards at the national, provincial, and municipal levels. He also received international awards and recognition for his research on urban resilience studies and sustainability research, as well as a Vice-Chancellor’s award for his impactful contribution to higher education. 

Jian ZUO is a Professor in Sustainable Construction at the School of Civil Engineering and Construction Management at Adelaide University. His main research interests are related to the sustainable built environment via both technical and managerial means. In particular, he has undertaken extensive research in construction and demolition waste recycling and management. As the lead researcher, he has been involved in a series of competitive grants in Australia such as Discovery Projects and Linkage Projects funded by the Australian Research Council as well as many other national key projects. He has long been engaged in the study of ecological towns, green buildings and sustainable development of the construction industry. Published more than 100 papers in top journals, including more than 80 journal papers indexed by SCI and SSCI.

Ayyoob SHARIFI is a Professor at the IDEC Institute, Hiroshima University. He also is a core member of the Network for Education and Research on Peace and Sustainability (NERPS). His research is mainly focused on urban sustainability, resilience, and climate change mitigation and adaptation. He has published extensively on these topics and is ranked among the world's top 1000 influential authors in all fields according to Stanford/Elsevier's Top 2% Scientist Rankings in 2024. Additionally, he received Clarivate's Highly Cited Researcher Award in 2024. Ayyoob actively contributes to global change research programs such as the Future Earth and has served as a lead author for the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The goal of his education and research activities is to inform actions toward building sustainable and peaceful communities.

Rongpeng ZHANG is a Full Professor and dedicated PhD Supervisor at the School of Architecture and Planning, Hunan University. His primary research pursuits encompass building performance modeling and simulation for intelligent buildings, alongside advanced built environment control for healthy buildings. He was a primary developer of several pivotal modules within the DOE-endorsed EnergyPlus building simulation engine, including VRF-HR, fault detection, and demand response modules. He was a primary developer of Commercial Building Energy Saver (CBES) platform, which obtained the 2019 R&D 100 Award as one of the 100 most significant new technologies in the world. Before joining Hunan University, he led the building science team and conducted a series of research on human-centric built environment control at Well Living Lab, which obtained the 2018 Edison Award. He also served as an assistant professor at Mayo Clinic, and a postdoctoral fellow in the Building Technology and Urban Systems Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He received his Doctorate in Building Performance and Diagnostics from School of Architecture, Carnegie Mellon University and his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Built Environment and Facilities Engineering at Tongji University.

Abbas ZIAFATI BAFARASAT is a Charted Town Planner (MRTPI), Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA), and Senior Lecturer in Town Planning, School of the Built Environment, Oxford Brookes University, where he also leads the Certificate in Spatial Planning Studies. Abbas undertook his PhD in Planning and Landscape at the University of Manchester, and his Post Doc at Technical University of Dortmund. His research interests involve healthy places, strategic planning, and education for sustainable development, with over 40 of his research outputs  published in leading scientific platforms, mostly setting new directions (e.g., SIY Urbanism, Strategic Urban Design) and exploring novel horizons (e.g., bottom-up agenda setting) for addressing complex socio-environmental problems.

Jie ZHAO is a lecturer of architecture in the Weitzman School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania, and President of P3Global, a Dubai-based sustainability, health and smart building advisory firm. He served as Head of Delos Labs and an Executive Vice President at Delos. His research focuses on Human-building Interactions, including healthy buildings, total building performance, occupant behavior in buildings, sensing and controls in buildings, health, comfort, and productivity of building occupants, as well as building energy efficiency and sustainability. He has published 20+ academic articles and serves as reviewers for 10+ top tier academic journals and conferences in the building science field. He frequently contributes to public media as a subject matter expert in healthy buildings, such as Wall Street Journal, CBS News, Forbes and Money. Jie received his PhD in Building Performance and Diagnostics from Carnegie Mellon University and Master’s and Bachelor’s degrees from Tongji University.  

All six editors have previously co-edited and published two books together on “Designing Healthy Cities” and “Designing Healthy Buildings and Communities”.