Making Cities More Resilient Through Urban Design: Case of Recreational Complex in “Block 44”, New Belgrade

Abstract

Throughout history, cities have faced risks but have also demonstrated their resilience to different kinds of disturbances and changes. Today, the scale and the unpredictability of urban risks are increasing due to the complexity of city systems and the uncertainty associated with many hazards, including climate change. The need to make cities more resilient affects how we plan, design, and build our cities. Urban design is a discipline that links architecture, landscape, and urban planning to provide meaningful, safe, functional, and pleasant places for people. As such, it is recognized as an essential tool for adapting cities to climate change and responding to other risks and disturbances. This paper explores how urban design can be used to improve the recreational quality of abandoned urban spaces while, at the same time, helping to make cities more resilient. The case of a planned but only partially built and abandoned recreational complex in New Belgrade is chosen as a context and a starting point of the study, being an example of the absence of resilience thinking in urban development. The study uses research by design method (in the context of an urban design studio) to identify new urban design models through which links between cultural landscape, urban recreation, and climate change adaptation can be established and analyzed. The results indicate that, although all identified urban design models enable the introduction of measures to adapt to climate change, the level of their contribution varies concerning spatial scales as well as different dimensions of urban resilience.