The current processes of cultural and economic globalisation have made visible relevant and frightening risks at a global scale: from climate change and loss of biodiversity to uncontrolled urban explosion, from the spread of informal low-intensity conflicts to the development of extensive forms of technological control and the enormous widening of economic and social inequalities. The sum of these phenomena can be defined as global risk society and widely impact urban environments that are often subject to destruction and require innovative design and planning strategies for management and reconstruction. CITIES UNDER PRESSURE defines an innovative research framework for the studies of urban morphologies in relation to risks and threats and the consequent reconstruction strategies. An unexplored research field that provides a new perspective through a new organisation and assessment system based on factor previously ignored by urban studies. CITIES UNDER PRESSURE develops novel conceptual and operative tools
for the comprehension and control of the complex entanglements of urban inputs within the global risk society paradigm. Innovative mapping and modelling systems, and the definition of mathematical algorithms allow to describe the conditions of urban patterns subject to conflict, disasters and major social distresses equipping design experts with key tools for disaster prevention, increase of urban resilience and sustainable development. CITIES UNDER PRESSURE constructs an innovative design paradigm that substitutes current fixed schemes with adaptable processes initiated by urban triggers and defined by the complementary elements of a backbone of public spaces and the induced design of private spaces. The research is the stepping stone in the definition of a discipline of reconstruction, opening new research directions for design experts and allowing fruitful multidisciplinary dialogues.