Rapid urbanisation generates risks and opportunities for sustainable development. Urban policy and decision makers are challenged by the complexity of cities as social–ecological–technical systems. Consequently there is an increasing need for collaborative knowledge development that supports a whole-of-system view, and transformational change at multiple scales. Such holistic urban approaches are rare in practice. A co-design process involving researchers, practitioners and other stakeholders, has progressed such an approach in the Australian context, aiming to also contribute to international knowledge development and sharing. This process has generated three outputs: (1) a shared framework to support more systematic knowledge development and use, (2) identification of barriers that create a gap between stated urban goals and actual practice, and (3) identification of strategic focal areas to address this gap. Developing integrated strategies at broader urban scales is seen as the most pressing need. The knowledge framework adopts a systems perspective that incorporates the many urban trade-offs and synergies revealed by a systems view. Broader implications are drawn for policy and decision makers, for researchers and for a shared forward agenda.

Regional design, long a backbone for spatial planning, even if under other names, has become topical again for two reasons – as a key strategy and as a key tool in spatial management. This is due to several reasons. New conditions of urbanization that result from the convergence of several factors highlight the need for spatial strategy formation and application at supra-metropolitan scales. These new conditions include globalization, climate change, booming urban population, increased mobility and interconnectivity, and new infrastructure technologies. These forces driving urbanization today and into the future play out at the urban scale, which is increasingly encompassed in the city-region. The solutions to the impacts and problems that these forces cause must be dealt with by a strategic urbanism at a scale that matches. This scale of urbanism can be denoted as regional design. To justify these claims and to understand the origins of regional design and its relevance today and into the future, the master strokes in its history are presented next. After that, we discuss current concepts and practices in regional design. In conclusion, we offer answers to the question: why a resurgence of regional design?

Globalization, tourism, virtuality, climate change, and the explosive growth of cities have generated a wide range of stressors, pollutants, and toxins that have been ravaging populations. This, coupled with viral, bacterial, and other pandemics, is rapidly creating a new reality that requires public health factors to be integrated more thoroughly into the planning and design of city regions. This prompts a questioning of the role and form of city centers as well as the distribution of people and activities in city regions. This goes beyond more outdoor spaces, places, and activities and new criteria for indoor events. Moreover, public transport, mobility, and infrastructure in general need to be retooled to deal with these emergent circumstances.

This article reports on one experimental case of interdisciplinary collaboration on a design and planning exercise across several scales – local through urban to regional – and sectors – private, public, scholarly, and interest groups. The case is a collaborative and interdisciplinary design charrette on sustainable urbanism for envisioning the future of the Greater Metropolitan Area of Florence in Italy. The experiment entailed the attempt to integrate complex urban conditions via the design charrette in order to create more healthy and sustainable cities. This collaborative work shows how conditions that are at times not addressed comprehensively nor holistically can be combined through doing applied research by design; where design is understood as a process of discovery and creation that results in synthesis. The article details the methodology applied, and provides an initial assessment on the process that the charrette employed. Moreover, it highlights some professional and policy implications of the effort. Finally, it provides a provisional assessment on learning outcomes and addresses opportunities to improve future exercises of this nature.

Infrastructure is all around us: under, above, even inside our built and natural landscapes. Sometimes hidden, sometimes visible. The flows that course through them make our cities, economies, and lives possible. Cities could not even exist without infrastructure. Life is endowed with more possibilities by infrastructure. The centrality of infrastructure is pervasive. Worldwide, cities embrace infrastructure for economic competitiveness, well-being, access, environmental protection and knowledge creation. As cities are crucibles that concentrate the human condition, infrastructures are conduits that enable that concentration and empower human achievement. As infrastructures shape almost every aspect of daily life, this article assays the various ways it currently makes places both less sustainable and resilient, as well as more so, and how we can minimise the former and optimise the latter.