Speculations
OFF
ON
Index
Place-sensitive. System-wise.
Urban Rural Systems
UR_ helps public agencies, multilateral organisations, and development partners navigate complex urban futures — where people’s lives, environmental systems, and infrastructure intersect. We work on challenges defined by genuine uncertainty — how systems behave, how environments respond, and how communities negotiate change. Rather than simplifying that uncertainty away, we make it legible — combining comparative insight, scenario thinking, and design-led experimentation to turn complexity into informed choice.
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Complex urban challenges do not stay contained. They span sectors, scales, and jurisdictions — and their effects often arrive long after decisions are made. Because complexity is context-dependent, comparison matters. Working between urbanisation in Asia and Europe exposes hidden assumptions — revealing that what appears to be a constraint in one setting may be a policy choice in another. UR_ works in that space: before consequences are locked in, when questions and concepts still shape outcomes.
Agropolitan Seed Town, Cikarang, West Java (IDN 2023), at Future Cities Lab (FCL) with Jababeka, new settlement types for megacity regions in Monsoon Asia. View project.
What
we make
What
we make
Strategy
Frameworks that connect lived realities to long-term change — from neighbourhood to regional transformation.
Concepts
Generative ideas and principles that structure complexity and guide development across scales.
Scenarios
Plausible futures grounded in spatial data, regulation, and policy — revealing trade-offs and expanding choice.
Design
Spatial proposals that translate strategy and concept into built form, tested through architectural and organisational prototyping.
Capacity
The goal is capability, not dependency. Teams leave with frameworks and tools that support confident decisions long after projects conclude.
Expandable house
2018
How we work
UR_ works through Design Actions — a method developed through research and practice that moves between evidence and imagination, lived experience and institutional constraint. Working alongside existing teams in collaborative studio format, we frame questions, develop concepts, expand options, and support decisions that clients understand and own.
Scale is not a ladder. Small decisions shape large systems. UR_ traces how local choices generate regional effects — and how large forces land unevenly across places.
Work is organised through five modes:
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
How we work
UR_ works through Design Actions — a method developed through research and practice that moves between evidence and imagination, lived experience and institutional constraint. Working alongside existing teams in collaborative studio format, we frame questions, develop concepts, expand options, and support decisions that clients understand and own.
Scale is not a ladder. Small decisions shape large systems. UR_ traces how local choices generate regional effects — and how large forces land unevenly across places.
Work is organised through five modes:
Sensing & framing
Understanding context and reframing challenges before solutions are defined
Collaborative analysis
Interpreting evidence and constraints through collective design
Imagining futures
Revealing trade-offs and expanding choice through scenarios
Crafting proposals
Testing strategy through spatial and organisational making
Building capacity
Stabilising insight into durable platforms teams can use independently
01
Agropolitan Seed Town, Cikarang, West Java (IDN 2023), Future Cities Lab (FCL) with PT Jababeka, Institut Pertanian Bogor (IPB), MYCL and partners.
02
The open-air exhibition consists of: (1)FCL Global research on agropolitan themes, (2)Design studio works from Harvard GSD, NUS MLA, MArch and Monash Indonesia
03
A selection of 13 exemplary built projects which respond to agropolitan conditions from selected architecture and landscape firms in the region.
04
A 1:1 incremental urban design installation with Agropolitan landscape installation by IPB University.
05
Initiated by FCL Global, PT JABABEKA Tbk, IPB University, MYCL and partners, Agropolitan Seed Town opened its door in the middle of paddy field in Cikarang, near Jakarta.
06
The open-air exhibition consists of: (1)FCL Global research on agropolitan themes, (2)Design studio works from Harvard GSD, NUS MLA, MArch and Monash Indonesia
07
A selection of 13 exemplary built projects which respond to agropolitan conditions from selected architecture and landscape firms in the region.
08
A 1:1 incremental urban design installation with Agropolitan landscape installation by IPB University.
Projects
Filters
UR_ is a principal-led practice directed by Dr Stephen Cairns, based in Jakarta, with a London studio opening in 2027. Project teams are assembled from a core network of long-term collaborators across Asia and Europe — including urban designers, ecologists, policy researchers, community practitioners, and technical specialists. Principal leadership retains direct responsibility for client relationships and project integration.
People
Dr Stephen Cairns is an urbanist, designer, and academic working on complex urban futures.
He directs the Agropolitan Territories research group at Singapore’s Future Cities Laboratory and holds professorships at ETH Zurich and Monash University Indonesia, with previous visiting appointments at Harvard GSD and the National University of Singapore. His work connects research to practice — from the award-winning Expandable House (Aga Khan Award shortlist, 2022) to publications including Buildings Must Die (MIT Press, 2017) and the Future Cities Laboratory: Indicia series (Lars Müller Press).
Through UR_, he collaborates with public agencies, multilateral organisations, and development partners navigating uncertainty — drawing on two decades of comparative research and design experimentation across Asia and Europe. Clients and collaborators have included Singapore’s Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA), the Asian Development Bank (ADB), and Schindler Group.
Publications
(8)
View
Cairns, Stephen and Devisari Tunas (eds) (2017, 2019, 2022). Future Cities Laboratory: Indicia volumes 1, 2 and 3. Zürich: Lars Müller Publishers.
Cairns, Stephen, and Jane M. Jacobs (2017). Buildings must die: A perverse view of architecture. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.
Neudecker, David, Michael Joos, Muhammad Salihin Bin Zaol-kefli, Yuhao Lu, Niraly Mangal and Stephen Cairns (2022). ‘ur-scape: Harnessing data for stakeholder participation in city-making processes’, Journal of Open-Source Software.
Cairns, Stephen, and Jane M. Jacobs (2019). ‘Fallow deferred’, New Geographies 10, Harvard Graduate School of Design.
Fun, Siew Leng, Kees Christiaanse, Stephen Cairns, Aurel von Richthofen, Dietmar Leyk, Katja Knecht, Yufan Miao, Reinhard König (2018). Urban elements: Advanced studies in urban design. Singapore: Future Cities Laboratory / Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA).
Cairns, Stephen (2018). ‘Debilitating city-centricity: Urbanisation and urban-rural hybridity in Southeast Asia’. In Routledge Handbook of Urbanization in Southeast Asia, ed. Rita Padawangi. London: Routledge. 115-30.
Cairns, Stephen (2015). ‘Wild City? The migrant settlements of Kampung Tower’, Harvard Design Magazine 41: 120-27.
Cairns, Stephen, Herlily and Eva Friedrich (2015). ‘Big Floods, Hard Infrastructure, and 'weak' plans: Megacity vulnerability and the case for diversified instruments for city-making’. In Cities in transition: Power, environment, society, ed. Wowo Ding, Arie Graafland and Andong Lu. Rotterdam: NAi Uitgevers / Publishers Stichting.
Exhibitions
(7)
View
Cairns, Stephen, and Daliana Suryawinata (2022-2023). ‘Agropolitan Seed Town’, Urban-Rural Systems with Jababeka and consortium, Cikarang, West Java, Indonesia.
Cairns, Stephen, Evi Syaffrudin and Agropolitan Territories (2023, 2025). ‘Agropolitan Territories of Monsoon Asia, ETH Zürich, Hauptgebaude/Honggerberg, Zürich and National Design Centre, Singapore.
Cairns, Stephen, Niraly Mangal, Miya Irawati, Andra Matin, Danny Wicaksono and Firman (2020). ‘Kualakai’, Capital city relocation design and planning competition, Indonesia. Ministry of Public Works and Public Housing, Indonesia.
Cairns, Stephen, David Neudecker, Kezia Dewi, Alpano Priyandes et al. (2016). ‘Desakota landscapes: Urban-Rural Economies in Southeast Asia’. In The Next Economy, 7th International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (IABR). April – September 2016, Maarten Hajer (Curator), Netherlands Architecture Institute, Rotterdam.
Cairns, Stephen, Miya Irawati, Azwan Aziz and Dioguna Putra (2020). ‘Expandable house’, Awarded ‘Living Space of Asia Pacific’, International Inde Awards; nominated for ‘Building of the Year’ (2018 and 2020) Archdaily;
Cairns, Stephen, Miya Irawati, Azwan Aziz and Dioguna Putra (2020). ‘Expandable house’, short-listed for Aga Khan Award for Architecture (2022 cycle); reviewed in Arketipo: Architeturra Del Fare (2025), Future Homes: Sustainable Innovative Designs (Avi Friedman 2023); Bluprint (Maria Rebecca Abaya 2021); Futurarc (2019); Metalocus (2022).
Cairns, Stephen, Devisari Tunas, Niraly Mangal, Rina Wulandari and Joris van Etten (2021). Leveraging spatial data for pandemic-resilient cities. Manila: Asian Development Bank (ADB) / ASEAN Australia Smart Cities Trust Fund (DFAT Australia).
Contact
studio@ur.systems
10:40am (AEDT)
Time in Jakarta Indonesia
Tuesday, 5 December 2023
Time in Jakarta Indonesia
Tuesday, 5 December 2023
We acknowledge our responsibility as stewards of the environmental, cultural, and social systems where we work.