You can watch the thirty-eighth Parlour LAB here!

In this session we explored how climate change is driving transformation in urban design research, practice and education and how emerging technologies contribute to shaping resilient, future-focused urban environments.

Dr Kavita Gonsalves, Sustainability APAC Design Lead at Populous, reflected on her PhD on radical placemaking and how her positionality shapes her approach to projects. Dr Sarah Barns, multidisciplinary scholar-practitioner, discussed her work with digital technologies and how they can shape responsive urban design and drive place-based strategies for climate resilience.

Key Takeaways

Beyond sustainability: The term sustainability was deliberately avoided—Sarah Barns described it as maintaining the status quo, advocating instead for regeneration that revives both human and ecological systems.
Holistic ecological thinking: Kavita emphasized that sustainability is too often reduced to decarbonisation. A truly regenerative approach includes biodiversity, prioritising nature and non-human life, and fostering social connection, healing, and care for place.
Place shapes identity: Both speakers underscored the importance of place in shaping who we are and how we relate to the world.
Critical engagement with technology: Technology can resist the status quo, but we must consider its material impacts, the extractive industries behind it, and how data can distort or undermine existing knowledge systems.
Kin-centred design: Kavita spoke about designing with care for future generations and the more-than-human world, centring kinship and interdependence.
Strategic change-making: In change processes, only a subset of people will be receptive to new ideas—focus efforts on those open to innovation to create momentum.
Dual timelines of action: Stay motivated by balancing future visioning with grounded, present-day actions—“think forward and think now.”