The resilient cities of the near future. Interview with David Gouverneur

We are honored to have with us David Gouverneur, Associate Professor of Practice in the Departments of Landscape Architecture and City Planning at the Weitzman School of Design of the University of Pennsylvania. Since the 1980s, he has carried out cutting-edge experiences in professional practice, public office, teaching, and scientific research in Venezuela and Latin America and some African nations. Welcome to the community of Vitruvio - International Journal of Architectural Technology and Sustainability. We look forward to an informal interview, understanding informal as creative and dynamic as you use it in your views on urban planning and sustainable design.We are living in very changing times. Nothing can be taken for granted. Territories are increasingly devastated by catastrophic climatic events (floods and landslides), earthquakes and unstoppable wars, growing inequalities, migratory flows, increasing poverty, and impoverishment of the natural and cultural heritage. You propose a landscape-driven para- digm shift to reverse the current drift and to meet the challenge of sustainable development. Your ideas are condensed in the book “Planning and Design for New Informal Settlements: Shaping the Self-constructed City”, published by Routledge in 2014, and an updated and expanded version in Spanish “Diseño de Nuevos Asentamientos Informales”, published by the Editorial Funds of EAFIT University (Medellín) and La Universidad de la Salle (Bogotá) in 2016. The attention in these publications is focused on informal settlements, namely those that grow spontaneously, many in unsuitable areas not covered by urban planning. Maybe, they are somehow a side effect of urban planning that increases the costs of building areas and makes them inaccessible to weaker social groups. The spontaneous districts have attracted your interest so much that you have earned the nickname ‘barriologue’, a Spanish-English neologism to indicate an expert in slums.