Working Groups

Working Groups are a core part of the annual APRU Sustainable Cities and Landscapes Conference and provide an important opportunity for delegates to participate in collaborative research and connect with members cross the APRU network. Working Groups typically leave the conference with a planned output related to their group theme and/or connected to the conference location. These groups also provide an opportunity for cross-disciplinary research, for new researchers (Including students!) to expand their networks, and to contribute towards finding solutions to the pressing problems of this century. Each year, there are both returning and new faculty Working Group Leaders that keep this important element to the annual conference going. Click below to learn more about leadership guidelines and the typical flow of a Working Group.

Working Group Leader Guidelines

The APRU SCL has established Working Groups around strategic themes that evolve from conference to conference to reflect the key issues and pressures for our cities and landscapes across the Pacific Rim. Below is a list of Working Groups who plan to be present at the 2026 conference in Shanghai, China.

Urban AI

This working group seeks to establish a research-to-impact continuum from research to tool development, city pilots, and application in practice. It aims to accelerate city-applicable research development and pilot projects including urban form, in-situ sensing, administrative and health data, landscape information, urban form, and mobility datasets with AI to enhance analytics across SCL themes.

WG Leads: Youngchul Kim, KAIST, and Elham Bahmanteymouri, University of Auckland.

Human Development and Nature Preservation

This working group aims to study cases where human development — such as urban expansion or resource extraction — intersects with areas where ecosystem preservation is a priority. The goal is to document and analyze how these places experience and manage such conflicts.

WG Lead: John Dunn, USFQ.

Botanical Urbanism

This working group offers a lens to re-center plants and ecological processes as fundamental urban drivers, while advocating a paradigm shift toward a culturally-engaged revolution of ecological design. It engages with political ecology by arguing that the ecological cannot be separated from the cultural and political.

WG Lead: Xiaoxuan Lu, National University of Singapore and Yun Hye Hwang, National University of Singapore.

Climate Adaptation and Urban Transformation

This working group investigates how urban places across the Pacific Rim are becoming test sites for innovative climate adaptation strategies. It focuses on climate adaptation experimentation—the intentional design, trial, and evaluation of new practices, governance models, technologies, socio-ecological interventions, and community-led initiatives in cities that respond to escalating climate risks.

WG Lead: Iresh Jayawardena, University of Auckland .

Moral Ecologies of Infrastructure

This working group focuses on three questions related to sustainable infrastructure. First, can we identify and understand the multiple ways that people make sense of and construct their environment, in different Asia Pacific cities and landscapes? Second, how do these moral ecologies relate to specific forms of essential infrastructure, such as transportation, water, or energy? And third, how can interpretive methods strengthen our ability to recognize, characterize, and engage these moral ecologies, to build pragmatic leadership skills for inclusive, equitable, sustainable development?

WG Lead: Anne Taufen, University of Washington.

Urban Landscape Biodiversity

This working group seeks to enhance biodiversity net gain while improving people’s relationship with nature. As it is essential that we work to balance environmental protection while providing society with more opportunities for public recreation, environmental education, and green economy development.

WG Leads: Fei Mo, Shanghai Jiao Tong University &  Sohyun Park, University of Connecticut.

Smart Urban Technologies

This working group leverages smart technologies, clean energy, and sustainable infrastructure principles to create cities that are energy-efficient, technologically advanced, and capable of meeting the needs of growing urban populations as well as counteracting climate change. By integrating cutting-edge technologies such as IoT, Digital Twin, Industry 4.0, and circular approaches with sustainable practices, this working group aims to develop comprehensive solutions that drive climate action, reduce carbon emissions, and enhance urban life. 

WG Lead:  Mohsen Mohammadzadeh, University of Auckland.

Age Friendly Cities and Communities

This working group unpack urban aging problems experienced by cities and communities in an aging society, propose context-based solutions towards sustainable and educational solutions to support the next generation of leaders for advancing inclusive, age-friendly planning.

WG Leads: Alex Li, National University of Singapore &  Mei Lan Fang, Simon Fraser University.

Civic Engagement and Community Design

This working group addresses continued challenges in forms of tokenism, conflicts, and resistance from society and state institutions, and engage in the advancement and critical assessment of civic engagement and community design practices across the Pacific Rim.

WG Leads: Jeff Hou, National University of Singapore & Mari Fujita, University of British Columbia.

Climate Justice and Community Resilience

This working group aims to develop strategies to enhance transdisciplinary research and practice capacity to allow social-ecological-technological systems resilience building in vulnerable communities and their built environment.

WG lead: To be decided.

Future Regenerative and Differential Cities

The Working Group investigates how current structural transformations of the environmental, social, and technological framework are profoundly reshaping urbanisation, posing new sustainability challenges. 

WG Lead:  Manfredo Manfredini, University of Auckland.

Landscape and Human Health

This working group focuses on the application of healthy (psychological and physiological) indicators; the use of technological devices in landscape research, analysis of built environment and landscape types; the planning and design of therapeutic landscapes, friendly environment for elders, and healthy green infrastructures; as well as developing healthy evidence-based design processes.

WG Lead: Tzuhui Angie Tseng, National Tsing Hua University.

Renewable Energy Systems and Landscapes

This working group will focus on developing a landscape-based approach to renewable energy deployment. This will include the development of metrics to assess value streams of landscape architectural design across technologies (solar, wind, energy storage, transmission), and scale and location (urban, suburban, rural, and coastal landscapes). 

WG Lead: To be decided.

Water and Waste Management

This working group aims to better understand alternative approaches to water and wastewater management. This includes identifying the advantages and disadvantages, the barriers (regulatory, behavioral, technological, etc.), as well as the potential for increased climate resilience and sustainability.