Resilience in Practice: The Identity-Based Resilience of the Diplomatic Quarter in Riyadh

The concept of resilience is often defined in a variety of ways, depending on the specific context or field of study. For instance, in a review of resilience definitions, particularly in the context of disaster recovery, Plodinec (2009) identifies over 40 distinct definitions. Viewing cities as complex adaptive systems, and breaking them down into components and analytical elements, can facilitate the process of enhancing resilience through urban system design, planning, and management. Both physical and social processes can be seen as spatial and temporal interactions across networks, and it is the movement into, out of, and within cities that is of utmost importance for promoting beneficial operations and suppressing harmful ones. Understanding the vulnerable network components of cities, how these components enable specific interactions, and the ability to design various elements and their interactions to achieve resilience, is a complex and nuanced task. Most of the current literature is, as a matter of fact, about post-disaster recovery, while the main goal of resilience, to be sustainable, is to plan in advance, limit or prevent disasters, not measure the time of bouncing back from it. This belief made it worth searching and analyzing case studies, making a positive impact despite the difficult conditions and making these learned lessons for future cities. Like sustainability, Resilience is an abstract and extensive concept, making it difficult to determine a specific implementation plan if it is not fully site-specific. Building a capacity for Resilience is a complex and multifaceted task, considering the myriad components, processes, and interactions within and beyond a city’s boundaries. And what if the conditions of the contest are unprecedented and the most challenging due to climate, time, and management constraints? Only time can tell. That’s why, after 45 years of completion, the resilience potential embedded in the planning process of the Diplomatic Quarter in Riyadh can offer assessing elements of Resilience and the potential of its applied solutions on their positive impact in the long term.