Baku, May 18, AZERTAC

AZERTAC presents an interview with Dr. Rafael Luna, architect, urban researcher, and director of the Infra-Architecture Lab. He is also co-founder of PRAUD and Senior Lecturer at the University of Technology Sydney.

- Why is Azerbaijan’s reconstruction process particularly significant in today’s global urban context?

- Azerbaijan’s reconstruction and urban transformation efforts arrive at a particularly important moment globally because cities are increasingly being forced to rethink their relationship to climate, infrastructure, housing, resources, mobility, and collective life. In many parts of the world, urban development remains constrained by outdated zoning models, fragmented infrastructures, and highly consumptive patterns of growth. The reconstruction of territories such as Garabagh, however, presents a rare opportunity to rethink the operational structure of urbanism itself.

What makes this process especially compelling is that reconstruction is not simply about replacing what was lost. It creates the possibility to test new forms of living, new infrastructures, and new relationships between architecture, ecology, technology, and community. In many ways, the future of sustainable urbanism will depend not only on how cities grow, but on how they reorganise systems of housing, production, mobility, environmental management, and public life into more integrated and resilient models.

- What role can architecture and infrastructure play in shaping more sustainable and resilient cities?

- Through the work developed at the Infra-Architecture Lab, we explore what we call hybrid or productive architecture — architectural and infrastructural systems that integrate the production and management of resources directly into the built environment. Historically, cities have separated housing, industry, ecology, transportation, energy, and infrastructure into isolated zones. Increasingly, resilient cities will depend on hybrid urban typologies where these systems become integrated into shared operational frameworks.

Rather than treating infrastructure as hidden technical systems operating independently from architecture and public life, future urban models can integrate renewable energy generation, biodiversity systems, water management, mobility networks, productive landscapes, and public amenities into multifunctional infrastructures. A single system can simultaneously provide housing, support biodiversity, generate energy, collect water, reduce urban heat, and activate public space.

One of the most significant opportunities for Azerbaijan is the possibility of developing cities that are environmentally productive rather than environmentally consumptive from the beginning.

- How should cities respond to changing demographics and new patterns of urban life?

- This relates directly to changing demographic realities. Around the world, cities are facing major shifts in household structures, including ageing populations, smaller family units, migration, and the rapid growth of single-person households. New urban developments should therefore not be conceived as static models, but as adaptable frameworks capable of evolving.

Hybrid typologies offer important opportunities because they can support mixed-use living, multi-generational communities, local economic production, and flexible housing systems that respond to changing social conditions.

Density also needs to be reconsidered. Too often, density is discussed only quantitatively through floor area ratios or population numbers. However, the vitality of cities depends on the qualitative relationship between density, public space, mobility, accessibility, and typological diversity. Successful urban environments create proximity between housing, work, culture, recreation, and infrastructure, allowing daily life to function through pedestrian networks and accessible public transportation rather than long-distance dependency.

- Why are collective memory and smart technologies both essential for the future of urban development?

- Another critical aspect of future urbanism is the integration of collective memory into contemporary development. Cities are not simply technological systems; they are accumulations of history, identity, infrastructure, and social experience layered over time. One of the risks of rapid urban development is the production of generic environments disconnected from local culture and memory.

This becomes particularly meaningful within post-conflict reconstruction. Preserving traces of history while simultaneously introducing new infrastructures and contemporary urban systems creates continuity between past and future. Collective memory becomes part of the cultural and spatial richness of the city itself.

At the same time, the role of smart technologies deserves reconsideration. Many contemporary smart-city models remain focused primarily on data collection, monitoring, surveillance, and optimisation. However, the next generation of smart cities should move beyond passive data gathering toward adaptive urban intelligence — cities that can learn, evolve, and respond dynamically to environmental and social change.

- What opportunity does WUF13 create for Azerbaijan and the wider South Caucasus region?

- Hosting global events such as World Urban Forum 13 places Azerbaijan within the broader international conversation about the future of cities. The forum’s focus on housing, resilience, reconstruction, climate adaptation, and sustainable urban development reflects many of the central questions currently shaping global urban discourse.

For Azerbaijan and the South Caucasus more broadly, there is a unique opportunity to position the region as a laboratory for future-oriented urbanism. Few regions currently can rethink urban systems at such a scale while simultaneously engaging with questions of sustainability, reconstruction, demographic transformation, environmental transition, and technological change.

The future of sustainable cities will depend on how architecture, infrastructure, ecology, mobility, memory, and public life are reorganised into integrated urban systems capable of adapting over time. Reconstruction becomes more than rebuilding — it becomes an opportunity to imagine new forms of urban life that are resilient, productive, ecologically integrated, and deeply connected to both people and place.

Author – Tamilla Mammadova