Course Information
| Programme | Resilience Workshop (ReWo) |
|---|---|
| Period | Block 1 |
| Number of ECTS | 0,5 ECTS |
| Coordinator | Dr. Pamela Durán-DÃaz |
| Language | English |
| Methodology | Short lectures, face-to-face workshop, poster-style presentations |
| Assessment | Group work 20%, Individual assignment 80% |
Description
Cities are increasingly confronted with disruptive shocks such as floods, heatwaves, and infrastructure failures, alongside chronic stresses like housing shortages, social inequality, and institutional fragmentation. These conditions interact, erode the performance of urban systems, and expose underlying vulnerabilities. In this context, resilience is key: cities must be able to prepare for, withstand, recover from, and adapt to a wide range of disturbance while maintaining essential functions, protecting their residents, and reducing systemic inequalities.
The Urban Resilience Workshop responds to this challenge by introducing students to the City Resilience Framework (CRF) and the Resilience Wheel as practical tools for understanding how shocks and stresses affect different urban systems, and how existing assets and capacities can be mobilised to strengthen resilience. The workshop focuses on structured diagnostics and strategy design that can inform real-world decision-making.
Objectives
In this workshop, participants will:
- Learn to diagnose how shocks and stresses interact across urban systems and to understand how existing assets, institutions, and capacities shape a city’s ability to cope and adapt.
- Identify, prioritise, and interpret urban vulnerabilities; assess the resources and conditions that enable resilience; and translate diagnostic insights into context-specific, actionable strategies by working with the City Resilience Framework and the Resilience Wheel.
- Strengthen their ability to communicate complex assessments clearly and collaboratively, preparing them to contribute effectively to multidisciplinary resilience planning processes.
Assessment
The workshop is delivered as an intensive, hands-on skills workshop. Students first work in teams to carry out a resilience diagnostic for a selected city, identifying and prioritising key shocks and stresses and relating them to the city’s systems and governance context. They then independently apply the same tools to another urban setting, translating what they learned collectively into formulating context-specific strategies on their own. Through this combination of collaborative and individual work, the workshop prepares students to contribute to resilience planning processes in municipalities, NGOs, and international organisations.
The assessment will be based on a pass/fail grading system.