Designing City Resilience to help uncover new ways of thinking about resilience

Global experts speaking at this year’s Designing City Resilience summit will call for more collaboration between city leaders and professionals from a wide range of sectors, plus improved citizen engagement, to ensure cities prosper and become more resilient.

Designing City Resilience, being held on 16 and 17 June in London, will help break down barriers and improve communication between all those involved in city resilience. It offers a unique platform for the exchange of ideas between professionals involved in design and construction; development and infrastructure; city leadership and governance; insurance and finance; and technology and communications.

Architect and urban planner Tim Stonor, Managing Director of Space Syntax and one of the summit speakers, believes the event will allow participants to gain an international perspective and uncover new ways of thinking about resilience.

“To create resilient cities we need to connect people, deliver good social outcomes and make cities more equitable and fun,” said Stonor. “We also have to create links between professional silos to influence national and city level policy for the better.”

Participants at the international summit will help shape how cities are planned, designed and built, by collaborating on real-life challenges in the City Resilience Challenge workshop being held over the two days.

The outcomes will be published and disseminated widely after the summit and it is hoped these principles will be implemented by cities around the world, helping them become more resilient.

Participants will also learn from a Who’s Who of global resilience experts, including: Nancy Kete, MD of the Rockefeller Foundation; George Ferguson, Mayor of Bristol; Saskia Saasen, Professor of Sociology, Columbia University; Helle Søholt, CEO of Gehl Architects; Julia Brickell, Head, Hong Kong Office, Regional Climate Business Anchor & Program Lead – Cities, International Finance Corporation; and Peter Williams, Big Green Innovations, at IBM.

“Allowing participants to play out scenarios and challenges will be an excellent way of dealing with this complex issue,” said Matthew Taylor, Chief Executive of the RSA and Chair of Designing City Resilience. “The aim is to have outcomes that are accessible to as wide an audience as possible.”

Designing City Resilience will be held on 16 and 17 June 2015, 66 Portland Place, London. For more information and to book a place at the event, visit www.designingcityresilience.com.

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