City as Canvas: Urban Landscapes

What happens when public space becomes a shared canvas, shaped equally by design, dialogue and ecology?

In the latest Architecture Hunter webinar, City as Canvas: Urban Landscapes, our founding director Deborah Saunt joined Pedro Lira, Co-founder of Natureza Urbana, to explore how urban environments can be reshaped to support more just, regenerative and human-centred futures.

Deborah presented her ongoing investigations into spatial justice, drawing on DSDHA's work across Camden, the West End and the City of London. She framed the city as a layered ecology, shaped by policy, memory, mobility and the natural systems beneath its surface. Through established methodology of mapping, co-design and long-term stewardship, she showed how streets, campuses and civic landscapes can be retrofitted to become more inclusive, biodiverse and socially meaningful. For DSDHA, public space isn't a fixed product but something continually discussed and iterated upon with young people, commuters, residents, institutions and communities.

From São Paulo, Pedro Lira brought a Latin American perspective, where ecological restoration and resilience drive new public landscapes. His projects demonstrate how nature-based solutions, mobility strategies and community-led processes create opportunities for collective wellbeing in rapidly transforming environments.

Together, the conversation reinforced that cities are living, adaptive systems shaped by both evidence-based design and lived experience. This aligns with DSDHA's wider research, including our long-term studies into mobility and the everyday journey, examining how shifting behaviours and environmental pressures influence how we design public space.