Radical Hope – Resilient Cities and Safe Havens

In an era marked by escalating geopolitical tensions, climate-related disasters, digital vulnerabilities and growing socio-economic inequality, cities around the world face an unprecedented convergence of challenges that strain their infrastructures, housing systems and social fabric. This moment calls for new ways of imagining how urban environments under pressure can be transformed into spaces of opportunity – not only to withstand traditional forms of conflict, but also to anticipate and prevent cascading crises, from attacks on critical systems and the shortage of affordable space to the fragmentation of communities.

The talk within the frame of this year’s Bucerius Summer School advocates a form of engaged optimism in architecture and urban design, exploring how the spaces we create can help shape a more resilient and inclusive future. It reframes resilience as a multidimensional strategy that combines adaptive design, protected public space, robust infrastructure and social cohesion. In doing so, it asks how cities can remain safe, equitable and dynamic while responding to the complex challenges of the twenty-first century.

PROGRAMME

Welcome and Introduction
Dunya Bouchi, Aedes, Berlin
Sascha Suhrke, Director, Head of Politics and Society, ZEIT STIFTUNG BUCERIUS, Hamburg

Presentations and Discussion
Lawrence Schätzle, Research Associate, Infrastructure, Digitalisation and Security, German Institute of Urban Affairs (Difu), Berlin
Alessandra Sammartino, Senior Urban Practitioner, TSPA Planning and Consulting, Berlin

About Bucerius Summer School

The Bucerius Summer School on Global Governance, conducted by the ZEIT STIFTUNG BUCERIUS in cooperation with the Karl Schlecht Stiftung, is an annual 10-day summer seminar with the aim to foster leadership qualities among young international professionals by opening a cross-border and transdisciplinary dialogue on current questions of global relevance and providing a platform, where leaders of tomorrow jointly discuss and develop ideas.

Since 2016, Aedes has been regularly invited to curate one-day programmes within the frame of the Summer School that combine inspiring input lectures by international experts with hands-on workshops, where the participants collectively tackle current issues by translating political measures into spatial planning in creative and unconventional ways. Previous subjects include: , (2024), (2022), (2019), (2017) and (2016).

Image: Urban Planning Washington D.C. (1900). © iStock / bauhaus1000

Funded by: ZEIT STIFTUNG BUCERIUS