In cities where crisis is constant, people move beyond planning — they act. From informal settlements adapting to floods, to neighborhoods organizing for mutual aid, communities weave responses faster than systems can track. This platform documents those urgent actions, the knowledge beneath them, and the dignity behind them.
Emergency urbanism isn’t about waiting for help. It’s about reclaiming agency, repurposing ruins, and restoring life. In these urban margins — often overlooked — we find radical imagination. We find temporary solutions that last. We find people building futures with what little they have. This is a space to learn from those acts.
Tapestry of Response is more than a blog or archive. It’s a shared space — where urbanists, artists, community leaders, and researchers meet to document the lived experience of emergency. We explore how people respond to collapse and how recovery becomes an act of care, creativity, and resistance. One thread leads to another. One story opens space for many.
Sally, 2025
Across African cities, every wall patched, every roof reimagined, every shared meal — they are part of the urban fabric. This is not just about crisis. It’s about survival as art, adaptation as strategy, and memory as resistance. In this project, every story is a stitch in a greater pattern — fragile, powerful, and worth preserving.