Livable Towns, Cities, Regions | DUBLIN

Towns, Cities, Regions Interdisciplinary Conference. Dublin, Ireland 2027
An interdisciplinary conference on place & planning; communities, design, sustainability & urban conservation. June 2027. University College Dublin.

Towns, cities and regions around the world are confronting profound environmental, social and spatial transformation. Population growth, housing pressures and infrastructural demands are reshaping how our built environments are envisaged, developed and governed. Climate change, sustainability and resilience are reframing how we think about the future of design and planning. In their turn, our existing urban fabrics, inherited buildings and historic neighbourhoods, shape the possibilities of change.
In this context, when we design the places in which we live, we are dealing with an increasingly complex and interconnected problem. Whether it be planning, architecture, conservation, or questions of communities, health and climate change, the terrain on which we tread inevitably overlaps.
The challenge in this scenario then, is not simply to preserve the past, design the present and plan a sustainable future, but to do it in unison. For example, the reuse of existing buildings is central to carbon reduction; the participation of communities in design is key to urban planning; the adaptation of cities to digital infrastructures supports resilience and sustainability. It is a scenario that requires the skills of architects, planners, environmental scientists and technologists; the perspective of historians, sociologists and health professionals; and the knowledge and insights of local people and communities.
Reflecting on this from the city of Dublin, the location of the conference itself is a prime example of the issues at play. In Dublin questions of climate adaptation, conservation, housing, and participatory planning unfold within a compact, walkable coastal capital shaped by layered development — from Georgian terraces and civic squares to docklands regeneration and expanding transport infrastructure. Its scale enables close engagement with several of the material realities of an existing built environment in a process of transition.
At the conference, there will be multiple themes for debate. In University College Dublin for example, themes and areas of interest include: urban revitalization, adaptive reuse, community engagement, systems thinking and place-making. They also take in the concept of collaborative pedagogies across fields like conservation, community and climate studies, as well as a focus on learning from the past – under the theme of the past, present and the possible.