Resilient Urbanism examines how cities, towns, and informal settlements around the world are responding to the intersecting challenges of rapid urbanisation, climate change, and growing social inequality. Through a collection of interdisciplinary essays and compelling case studies, from Maputo and Rio de Janeiro to Hanoi and Buenos Aires, this volume reveals how urban communities confront crises and cultivate resilience in their everyday lives. Rather than treating resilience as a fixed framework, Resilient Urbanism explores it as a lived, evolving process shaped by the socio-political dynamics of urbanisation. By challenging dominant narratives, the book offers critical perspectives on how resilience is produced, contested, and reimagined across diverse urban contexts. Essential reading for scholars, policymakers, and urban practitioners alike, this volume provides fresh insights into how cities endure disruption—and how they can shape more equitable and sustainable futures.

Join us for the launch of Resilient Urbanism to explore these urgent conversations about the future of cities.

Resilient Urbanism, edited by Gihan Karunaratne

Published by Routledge, London, 2025

Moderator

Dr Dubravka Sekulić, Head of Programme City Design

Panelists

Gihan Karunaratne is an architect and academic whose research focuses on urban transformation, informal settlements, and marginalised communities in the Global South. His work critically engages with themes of urban precarity, structural inequality, and resilience, and he is the author and editor of publications including Informal Settlement of the Global South, Resilient Urbanism, and Displaced Urbanism.

Johan Mottelson is Associate Professor at the Royal Danish Academy, where he specialises in informal urban development across Africa. His research examines the intersections of the built environment, livelihoods, and sustainability, with a focus on housing, infrastructure, land tenure, and climate adaptation. His work has been widely published in leading international journals.

Kanishka Goonewardena, trained as an architect in Sri Lanka, is Professor of Geography and Planning at the University of Toronto. He teaches courses such as “The Production of Space,” “Space, Time, Revolution,” and Urban Design studios. His writing spans urbanism, critical theory, imperialism, Marxism, and Sri Lanka, contributing to debates at the intersection of space and power.

Angeliki Sakellariou is an architect and researcher with an MPhil from the RCA and a PhD from the University of Westminster. Her interdisciplinary practice spans video, drawing, and performance, exploring temporary public space use by socio-cultural initiatives in Athens. Her work has been exhibited across Europe, and she currently teaches at University of Reading, focusing on community, ritual, and performance in architecture.

Kira Bre Clingen is a climate design researcher. She was the 2023-2025 Daniel Urban Kiley Teaching Fellow and Lecturer in Landscape Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Previously, she led the project Compound Vulnerabilities: The Case of Cape Ann, a multi-year coastal adaptation initiative in northern Massachusetts as a Research Associate at Harvard’s Office for Urbanization. A Watson Fellow and co-founder of APOCATOPIA, she holds degrees in ecology and environmental policy from Rice University. She is currently pursuing her PhD at the University of Cambridge.