Latent City: a Framework for Urban Adaptability

Cities are facing uncertainty and change to which they must learn to adapt. Traditionally these pressures have been addressed through technical and efficiency-oriented solutions which function within limits created by the urban systems of the city. These limits do not imagine another stable state for the city to shift to and so reduce the ability for a city to change and adapt. Resilience theory can help to understand how cites address or adapt to change and uncertainty. It can help to recognize the limitations set by current frameworks and concepts, and help to reconsider how to create adaptability based versions that work beyond those limits. Through an urban system framework informed by resilience theory we can imagine a city, and by extension architecture, that can effectively adapt to the pressures placed on it.