Next Thursday March 5th, our Development by Design: Dialogues in Architecture, Equity and Development continue with special guest Dan Lewis, disaster and post-conflict expert of UN-Habitat. Organized in collaboration with Roca, the series was conceived by our master program to highlight the role of architects and designers in contexts of poverty, disaster, conflict and rapid urbanization. In each of the four sessions, we pair up a special guest from respected agencies and NGOs from the development field with one of our own staff and hash out the key issues surrounding the practice of architecture and design particularly in the field of development and in the construction of cities in general. (Register here!)

In this second dialogue, Chief of UN-Habitat’s Urban Risk Reduction Unit and head of the City Resilience Profiling Program Dan Lewis will sit with faculty member and urban/environmental researcher Hug March to talk about how developing cities in particular can acquire the necessary tools and strategies to be resilient, in other words, to withstand and recover quickly from any plausible hazard.
Dan Lewis during his workshop with our students earlier this course

Dan Lewis, together with UN-Habitat’s post-disaster management expert Esteban Leon and Maita Fernandez of the City Resilience Profiling Program gave a workshop on Disaster response and City resilience back in November. It is the second time UN-Habitat participates as guest professors of our program.

Based in Barcelona, the City Resilience Profiling Program is UN-Habitat’s new agency responsible for ensuring the sustainable development of cities, towns, and settlements. It is a partner in the new global collaboration for urban resilience, along with organizations like the World Bank, C40 Climate Leadership Group and the Rockefeller Foundation. According to the CRPP, resilience goes beyond conventional approaches to risk reduction to deliver a forward-looking, multi-sectorial, multi-hazard, multi-stakeholder model for building resilience that recognizes the complexities and unique value of cities, and the inherent interdependencies of each part of an urban system.

To attend, just register online and let us know you’re coming on our Facebook event. We hope to see you at this first session of our Development by Design series at our partner’s sleek venue Roca Barcelona Gallery next Thursday at 7pm! Don’t forget to check the entire program for the next two sessions featuring World Vision and architect Teddy Cruz! Stay tuned for updates here and on Facebook and Twitter.

—————————————–

SPEAKER BIOS

Dan Lewis | With more than thirty years of experience in humanitarian, transitional and development work, Dan Lewis is now Chief of UN-Habitat’s Disaster and Post-Conflict Section (DPCS) based in Kenya. He initially worked as civil engineer and private consultant in urban reconstruction and housing programs in South Africa and Chile, as well as with First Nation communities from his home region in Canada. Dan currently manages the UN-Habitat’s global portfolio to address the impacts of political conflicts and natural disasters in Africa, the Middle East, South and South-East Asia, South Pacific Small Islands Region, North America and South America. He is Director of UN-Habitat’s City Resilience Profiling Program (CRPP) headquartered in Barcelona, which focuses primarily on bringing together actors of different sectors to disseminate information, network with academia, exchange knowledge, and define best practices to build urban resilience.

Hug March | Hug has a Ph.D. in Environmental Sciences from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), 2010 and is a research fellow at the Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3), Universitat Oberta de Catalunya and was also a researcher in the Department of Geography UAB and visiting predoctoral researcher at the School of Environment and Development, University of Manchester. His research, focused on the political ecology and economy of urbanization, has contributed to the debates around urban water infrastructure and water provision. He has contributed to more than 20 publications in national and international journals in the fields of Geography, Environmental Studies/Sciences, Urban Studies and Economics, among other disciplines.

Leave a Reply