Uniform width
The channel keeps a similar width up to the coastline.
Research / AA Design Research Laboratory / 2024
ResilientMetropoles
How can coastal cities grow with water, rather than simply defend against it?
Project visualisation / portfolio page 4Research overview
The study in brief.
This academic group study connects land-use decisions, physical water tests and waterfront design.
Research: Ashwin Rajendran · Nishtha Gupta · Sidharth Tayal
An academic design investigation, not a built development. Original research plates and full team credits accompany the illustrated guides.
How the model works
The urban economy.
Land, rent and tax connect development to shared infrastructure.
Different uses share the same streets, land and waterfront.
- 01
Development actors
Representatives choose whether to buy land, build or skip their turn.
- 02
Land + buildings
Land and construction use a budget. Development changes surrounding land values.
- 03
Rent + tax
Rent generates income; maintenance and tax are costs. Tax goes to the communal actor.
- 04
Public infrastructure
Communal resources pay for shared infrastructure, changing access and opportunities.
- 05
A changed city
The next decision starts with different buildings, access and land values.
The cycle repeats: the changed city shapes the next move.
Inside the study
Six connected studies.
Read the guides, then inspect the original plates.
Development actors
Communal, residential, industrial, commercial and office representatives make different decisions about land, construction and shared infrastructure. These actions show one round of the model.
Reading: Compare each development move with its costs and effects on shared resources.
Five actors, one shared city
- Communal
Infrastructure built; tax collected.
- Residential
Land bought.
- Industrial
Land bought; construction.
- Commercial
Pass.
- Office
Construction.
- Investment
- Land + construction costs
- Operating return
- Rent − maintenance costs
- Shared resources
- Tax − infrastructure costs
Editorial illustrations of five roles, not simulation results. Actions shown are one round from portfolio page 3, not fixed rules.
Inspect the original economic plateCanal behaviour
The study treats the canal mouth, bends and branches as design variables, then compares them with water speed and flooding.
Reading: Test geometry against water response; these comparisons do not identify one universally best canal shape.
Where the sea meets the canal
Read the coastline, the opening and the junction together. Compare the three plans below.
- Coastline
- The boundary of land and sea.
- Canal mouth
- The opening where the channel meets the sea.
- Branch junction
- The point where the channel divides inland.
Wide mouth
The banks open out towards the sea.
Narrow channel
A slimmer channel leads to a smaller coastal opening.
Reading guide · Editorial illustration of canal geometry studied in portfolio page 7. Terrain and water are illustrative, not a measured site or simulation output. The complete original plate remains below.
View the original canal studies Portfolio page 7
The complete original plate is shown here. Fine detail remains limited because the portfolio embeds the diagrams at low resolution.
Open original image separatelyPhysical flood tests
Five terrain iterations are tested in a 1200 × 900 millimetre tank under water current, inundation and stormwater conditions, revealing recurring low points where water collects.
Reading: Model-scale water accumulation identifies conditions to examine, not evidence of flood safety for a real district.
High current
Water reaches the recessed coastline in the physical terrain model.
Stormwater
Rainfall is applied to test drainage through the canal network.
Recurring low points
The source identifies recurring areas where water collects across the tested conditions.
Portfolio page 8 · Selected physical test photographs. The complete plate includes all five terrain iterations.
Open the complete original plateEmergent streets
The street study uses areas of accumulated water to guide street growth. It compares a constrained grid with networks that allow more freedom to branch.
Reading: Compare grid and branching organisation; a more complex pattern is not automatically a better one.
How to read emergent streets
Begin with the terrain, look at the direction a street can take, then compare the pattern made by many streets.
01
Water accumulation
The low ground holds water. In the study, areas of accumulated water guide where streets grow.
02
Freedom to turn
The growth angle controls how freely the next street can change direction. Read the junction, not just the route's endpoint.
03
Grid or branching
Repeated rules create a network. Compare the regular blocks on the left with the more varied junctions and plots on the right.
Reading guide · Editorial illustrations explain terrain, growth direction and network form studied in portfolio page 9. They are not simulation outputs or measured flood predictions. The original comparisons remain below.
View the original street studies Portfolio page 9
The complete original plate is shown here. Fine detail remains limited because the portfolio embeds the diagrams at low resolution.
Open original image separatelyBuilding catalogue
The simulation is translated into building types ranging from the water’s edge to higher ground: elevated roads and buildings on stilts near water, grounded buildings inland.
Reading: Read building types against ground and water conditions, not as tested construction specifications.
Intertidal to upland
Building types respond to their distance from the water.
Assembly 01
Building types are combined with routes and a shared waterfront.
Assembly 02
A second arrangement using the same building types.
Portfolio page 5 · Project visualisations from the original portfolio.
Open the complete original plateSpatial consequence
Economic and environmental rules become alternative metropolitan assemblies and a waterfront design. These are project visualisations, not built work.
Reading: Read the waterfront as an assembled design, not evidence of a built or occupied city.
Initial building arrangement
The game establishes an initial arrangement of uses and building volume.
Architectural translation
The initial arrangement is developed into buildings, landscape and routes.
At the water's edge
A project visualisation of the public waterfront—not a photograph of built work.
Portfolio page 6 · Project visualisations from the original portfolio.
Open the complete original plateWhat this establishes
Here, resilience is treated as a negotiation between public investment, developer behaviour, water movement and spatial form.
Nishtha’s continued research
Working paper / SSRN / 2026
Learned Developer Agents for Emergent Urban Form
What changes when simulated developers learn from earlier decisions? Nishtha’s 2026 working paper studies how those choices reshape land use.
2024 / Team study
Development rules, water studies and architectural translation.
2026 / Nishtha Gupta
Learned developer decisions within a modelled economy.
Project archiveFilm, contributors and sources+
Public studio presentation
The AA DRL presentation provides the longer spoken account of the team’s method and outcomes. It is supporting context for the six original project figures above.
Research contributors
Ashwin Rajendran.
Nishtha Gupta.
Sidharth Tayal.
Developed at the AA Design Research Laboratory. Nishtha’s contribution, as recorded in her portfolio, spans urban research and design, land-use simulation and spatial design.
Resilient Metropoles record and limits
- Project status
- Academic group research developed at the AA Design Research Laboratory in 2024.
- Exact team
- Ashwin Rajendran, Nishtha Gupta and Sidharth Tayal.
- Original research plates
- The original plates are page crops from the portfolio (pages 3–9), without generative alteration. Each remains available beside its reading guide.
- Illustrated reading guides
- The urban-economy, canal and street illustrations explain the source concepts. Economic labels follow the actions and accounting on portfolio page 3. They are qualitative guides, not simulation outputs or measurements.
- Contribution account
- Nishtha's portfolio records her involvement in urban research and design, land-use simulation and spatial design. The portfolio describes this as “four-dimensional land-use simulation,” but does not define the four dimensions. The project remains credited to the three-person team above.
- Contribution boundary
- Field Assembly foregrounds Nishtha's research position while preserving Resilient Metropoles as the credited three-person team's work.
- Representation boundary
- The metropolitan images are academic project visualisations and research diagrams, not evidence of a constructed scheme.
Publication details
Publication record.
Cite this page
Ashwin Rajendran, Nishtha Gupta and Sidharth Tayal. “Resilient Metropoles.” Field Assembly, Issue 01. Published 1 August 2026; revised 14 September 2026. https://fieldassembly.press/resilient-metropoles.
Page summary
In brief
We asked
Can coastal urbanisation work with water rather than only defend against it?
What this page shows
Resilience must coordinate public investment, developer behaviour, water movement and spatial form across the metropolitan system.
What’s included The six-part simulation and water-testing sequence