PLANET SIGNAL · 4PLANET MAGAZINE
What if urban design left more room for succession?
A 2026 systematic review from TU Delft reframes urban rewilding as a process-led design approach rather than simply adding more green elements to a finished plan.
Signal
The review synthesised 1,184 records at macro level and 103 spatially explicit studies in detail, finding urban rewilding research still relatively scarce and proposing a four-level path from design intent to operational application.
Why it matters
Architecture and landscape practice usually specify finished objects. Rewilding asks designers to work with change, succession, connectivity and ecological autonomy, a different relationship between plan and living system.
Boundary
The review finds only a small urban subset in the detailed evidence base. Its framework is a proposed design translation, not proof that rewilding will outperform other approaches in every urban context.