Mission

The Center for Resilient Cities and Landscapes (CRCL) uses planning and design to help communities and ecosystems adapt to the pressures of urbanization, inequality, and climate uncertainty. CRCL works with public, nonprofit, and academic partners to deliver practical and forward-thinking technical assistance that advances project implementation through interdisciplinary research, visualization of risk, project design scenarios, and facilitated convenings. CRCL integrates resilience thinking into design education and academic programming, bringing real-world challenges into the classroom to train future design leaders.

Established in 2018 at Columbia University’s Graduate School for Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP), CRCL extends Columbia’s leadership in climate-related work and supports the interdisciplinary collaborations and external partnerships needed to engage the most serious and challenging issues of our time. CRCL is allied with the Earth Institute’s Climate Adaptation Initiative and works across disciplines at Columbia by bridging design with science and policy to improve the adaptive capacity of people and places.