Date: Friday, 22 May 2026
Time: 12:00 - 13:30 (UTC+4, Baku time)
Location: ONE UN Room B, UN Building - Baku, Azerbaijan
WUF13 ONE UN Event | Organised by UNU-FLORES and UN-Habitat City Resilience Global Programme
About the Event
How can circular construction deliver housing that reduces resource use while strengthening climate resilience globally? This ONE UN session explores the connections between innovative design, material circularity, and resilience thinking to offer practical housing solutions for cities facing climate and resource pressures. At its centre is the House of No Waste (HØW), a compendium of ideas resulting from a global architectural competition organised by UNU-FLORES, which challenged young designers and researchers to reimagine how buildings can be constructed and managed with minimal environmental impact, tapping into local waste streams, reducing primary material use, and cutting embodied carbon across the building lifecycle.
In dialogue with UN-Habitat’s Urban Resilience Hub, the session connects circularity with resilience, showing how housing can be designed to adapt to climate impacts, support inclusive recovery, and strengthen urban systems. Insights from the Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction (GlobalABC), the UNEP-hosted global multi-stakeholder alliance advancing decarbonisation across the buildings and construction sector, bring in the global policy perspective. UNU-FLORES leads a priority action under the Buildings Breakthrough agenda to strengthen the link between research, policy, and implementation.
The session uses a novel format: focused impulse presentations from HØW, the Urban Resilience Hub, and the GlobalABC are followed by the screening of “Les Matérialistes”, a short film by Architecture Without Borders Quebec, Dark Matter Labs and partners, which provokes participants to imagine circular urban futures. A guided dialogue then explores tensions between innovation and affordability, global solutions and local realities, and speed of action versus quality of resilience. Expert reflections from a sustainability assessor, a city leader, and a next-generation architect representing youth round off the session. The event paves the way for future synergies between UNU and UN-Habitat to advance the global mandate of the New Urban Agenda.
If you have any questions or would like more information about the event, please contact estefania.rodriguezdelpuerto@un.org.
