Urban Design Climate Workshops: Methodologies and tools for integrating urban climate factors in planning and design practice

The Urban Design Climate Workshops (UDCWs), developed by the Urban Climate Change Research Network (UCCRN), are collaborative initiatives that bring together urban planners, scientists, policymakers, and communities to advance climate-resilient urban development. Introduced in 2015, UDCWs are rooted in scientific assessments from UCCRN’s climate reports (ARC3.2, 2018; ARC3.3, 2025) and aim to integrate climate mitigation and adaptation strategies with social, economic, and environmental co-benefits.

UDCWs embed evidence-based approaches into standard urban planning and design. This process challenges the "business as usual" mindset, fostering climate resilience while ensuring equity and environmental justice. The methodology is data-driven and participatory, introducing as key components the concepts of urban climate factors - Efficiency of Urban Systems, Form and Layout, Building Envelope and Outdoor Surface Materials, Green and Blue Infrastructure - which identify the main drivers of anthropogenic carbon emissions and key features determining urban microclimate conditions.

UDCWs employ scenario-based prototyping to develop urban design solutions that reduce energy consumption, enhance public spaces and ecosystem services, and strengthen climate adaption. The methodology combines simulation and facilitation tools, such as GIS and 3D modeling, to assess climate risks, map urban heat islands and flood zones, and quantify co-benefits like biodiversity and accessibility. Simultaneously, stakeholder engagement tools, including collaborative mapping and co-design workshops, ensure that proposed solutions are based on community knowledge and priorities.

This multi-scale, interdisciplinary approach has been applied in global cities like New York, Rio de Janeiro, Durban, Paris, Naples, Barcelona, and Thessaloniki. UDCWs have been developed and refined through research projects including Erasmus+ “UCCRN_edu”, Horizon Europe “KNOWING” & “UP2030”, and NSF’s “City-as-Lab”. The UDCW framework represents a transformative step towards integrating climate science and urban action, fostering resilient, net-zero urban environments.