Shaping Sustainable and Liveable Cities and Regions

This research focus targets cities and regions as built and social spaces in which communities give shape to their lives, beliefs and aspirations. It addresses key challenges: How can sustainability, quality of life and economic dynamism be combined? How can climate neutrality and adaptation to climate change be reconciled with social and environmental goals? What role can cultural creativity and identity play? And how can issues facing the Global South be addressed? 

The aim is to build on existing strengths, regenerate and further develop cities and regions, and apply principles of reuse and circularity at an urban and regional level. By combining design and planning approaches, we promote novel transformative, integrative, and transdisciplinary research. Adopting a cross-scale perspective – ranging from buildings and open spaces through neighbourhoods and cities to the regional dynamics of metropolisation and peripheralisation – we address the change of spatial structures and urban spaces.