Urban rooftop garden with two people tending plants amid skyscrapers.

Urban rooftop garden with two people, skyscrapers in background.

Resource Circularity: Reimagining Cities as Regenerative Systems

Vancouver, British Columbia

A collaborative research-in-practice initiative involving architects, government agencies, academic institutions, and industry partners.

By 2050, nearly 70% of the global population will live in cities. Food demand is projected to increase by more than 50%, with most of that demand concentrated in urban areas. At the same time, food systems already account for roughly one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions, and expanding these existing systems could accelerate climate change. These pressures place cities at the center of the global sustainability challenge.

Typically, urban metabolism, resource recovery, and food supply chains are considered to be discrete systems—best addressed through infrastructure, policy, or operations rather than design. Buildings remain largely passive consumers of energy and resources, even as they generate waste streams that could directly align with our food system needs.

Client: Perkins&Will
Completion Date: 2025

But what if our cities could do more?

What if cities functioned as circular, regenerative systems? How can buildings evolve to be productive participants that offer not just shelter but resources?

Blue book cover titled Resource Circularity by Perkins&Will.

Resource Circularity brings together architecture, building performance, agriculture, policy, and economics to explore how urban systems can evolve beyond a conventional linear metabolism. Through interviews, policy analysis, and case study reviews, the report discusses:

Policy frameworks shaping the future of BIA

Market analysis and economic considerations for scaling

Ecological and environmental impacts of integrated food systems

Technical analysis for system design and infrastructure compatibility

Design implementation, human experience, and the role of BIA in supporting community resilience

By reframing the role of architecture in urban systems, our research aligns building waste streams with food system needs.

Urban sustainability system with agriculture, waste management, and water recycling.

News you can use

Our research integrates directly into practice. By collaborating with government, local institutions, architects, engineers, urban farmers, policymakers, and academic partners, we were able to test our findings through real projects, design studies, and stakeholder engagement rather than academic inquiry alone.

The work translates research findings into design-operational frameworks and tools: system diagrams, performance benchmarks, and scenario-based evaluation methods that can be deployed early in the design process. These tools allow project teams to test assumptions, compare alternatives, and evaluate trade-offs between yield, energy, carbon, cost, and spatial impact before systems are locked in.

And coming soon, in collaboration with Simon Fraser University and the BC Centre for Agritech Innovation, we are currently developing a decision-support platform that will use machine learning to predictively evaluate regenerative building systems.

This report highlights that circular cities are an urgent necessity. By rethinking urban infrastructures—with agriculture at its core—as a regenerative, productive ecosystem, we move toward a new paradigm for sustainable cities—one where buildings are not just shelters but living systems that feed, sustain, and regenerate.

Mohamed Imam, Ph.D., Senior Research Lead

Resource Circularity: Reimagining Cities as Regenerative Systems

Read the full report here.

Funding for this project has been provided by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada through the Agricultural Clean Technology (ACT) Program. Matching funding was provided by Perkins&Will and the BC Centre for Agritech Innovation (BCCAI).