Deborah Navarra
About
Cities are complex systems: interdependent across sectors, scales, and institutions. Governance rarely reflects that nature — climate, housing, mobility, and culture each sit in their own institutional lane, which is why systemic change so often stalls. My research, teaching, and leadership work from a single conviction: urban design is the transdisciplinary discipline positioned to close that gap, translating governance and technological questions into spatial arrangements that hold coherence across sectors and time.
My training began in built, commissioned architecture in Rome and New York. New York redirected me toward the urban scale — pursued through the MSc in Building and Urban Design in Development at The Bartlett, UCL — the scale that could serve more than a single client or building, and one I grounded further in community-focused practice through urbanita. That redirection became a PhD — including a period as Visiting Researcher at UC Berkeley's College of Environmental Design — a monograph, and urbanĭtas (urbanitas): the civic condition durable urban design cultivates, developed through Corpo, forma e res publica: la Human Scale nella polis del XXI secolo (Quodlibet, 2023). I am a Registered Architect (Ordine degli Architetti di Roma, No. A27483).
This method (what I call readiness infrastructure, the relational capacity that lets institutions, technologies, spatial form, and collective life coordinate under conditions of complexity) now carries into Horizon Europe and Erasmus+ consortia at NTNU, where municipal governments hold formal partner status across European cities. I manage and contribute to major projects — including Re-Value, Co-Waters, BauhausBites, CrAFt, and NEB-STAR — supporting cities in transforming sustainability ambitions into spatial and policy innovation.
I teach and supervise future architects and urban designers in design thinking, systems-based methodologies, and real-world engagement, and view design education as a civic practice, where critical inquiry meets action to create a more inclusive and resilient urban future.
"Let's leave this world a little better than we found it." — B.P., 1941
Competencies
- Architecture
- Design education
- Design for Sustainability
- HE project management
- New European Bauhaus
- Smart Sustainable Cities
- Sustainability
- Sustainable urban development
- Systemic Design
- Urban Design
- architecture
- city governance
- design thinking
- human scale
- public spaces
- story building
- system design
- urban design
Research
Cities are interdependent systems: climate, housing, mobility, public spaces and culture form a single interacting whole. The institutions that govern them are organized by separate domains, each accountable to its own logic and timeline. My research asks whether urban design — a transdisciplinary practice already structured to work across those domains — can function as the mechanism that aligns how cities are governed with how cities actually behave.
I develop this argument by proposing that urban design functions as readiness infrastructure: a relational structure that cultivates cities' capacity for coordinated transformation. This capacity is produced through three interrelated mechanisms: Spatialization translates governance and technological questions into spatial arrangements that reorganise relations between actors, institutions, and everyday life. Alignment structures coordination across fragmented domains under conditions of asymmetry. Iterative Calibration embeds learning across time through phased intervention and feedback. Run robustly, these three mechanisms sustain four structural qualities — Negotiated Asymmetry, Temporal Mediation, Legibility under Complexity, and Cross-Domain Alignment — the conditions under which durable civic quality accumulates over time.
This framework extends the civic-condition argument developed in my doctoral research and monograph, Corpo, forma e res publica: la Human Scale nella polis del XXI secolo (Quodlibet, 2023), and is set out in full in my Research Notebook Series.
I test and develop this framework through a portfolio of Horizon Europe and Erasmus+ projects, each a live site for readiness infrastructure in practice. Re-Value addresses waterfront cities and urban quality across a 27-partner, 9-city consortium, where I serve as Vice Coordinator and Project Manager. Co-Waters extends this to water-sensitive urban design and ocean governance, where I lead Work Package 3's co-creation processes. Bauhaus Bites examines food systems as a driver of inclusive, aesthetic urban transformation; CrAFt and NEB-STAR develop and test impact models for the New European Bauhaus across climate-neutral city transitions. Across the board, municipal governments hold formal partner status, establishing direct, contractual working relationships with public administrations in European cities and grounding this framework in implementation.
CrAFt
Re-Value
Bauhaus Bites
NEB-STAR
CO-WATERS
Publications
2025
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Quan, Xiangyu;
Wyckmans, Annemie Bertha Marcella;
Khaleghi, Marjan;
Ahlers, Dirk;
Mohajermoghari, Nikoo;
Navarra, Deborah.
(2025)
Deliverable 7.5 Re-Value Monitoring & Evaluation Report 2.
European Commission
Research report
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Wyckmans, Annemie Bertha Marcella;
Navarra, Deborah;
Protopapadaki, Christina.
(2025)
Deliverable 7.7 Re-Value Impact Dialogues with NetZeroCities 2.
European Commission
Research report
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Quan, Xiangyu;
Khaleghi, Marjan;
Navarra, Deborah;
Vergerio, Giulia.
(2025)
Deliverable D7.8 Re-Value Monitoring & Evaluation Report 3.
European Commission
Research report
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Orlando, Arianna;
Wyckmans, Annemie Bertha Marcella;
Navarra, Deborah;
Vergerio, Giulia;
Khaleghi, Marjan;
Lazarević, Slađana.
(2025)
Deliverable 8.8 Communication, Dissemination and Exploitation Plan 3.
European Commission
Research report
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Navarra, Deborah;
Ahlers, Dirk;
Poudyal, Shreejana;
Nygren, Anne Sunniva Bratsberg.
(2025)
Deliverable 9.8 Re-Value Consortium Plan 3.
European Commission
Research report
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Navarra, Deborah;
Ahlers, Dirk;
Poudyal, Shreejana;
Berbic, Nadira;
Nygren, Anne Sunniva Bratsberg.
(2025)
D9.10 Re-Value Consortium Plan 4.
European Commission
Research report
-
Navarra, Deborah;
Mohajermoghari, Nikoo;
Wyckmans, Annemie Bertha Marcella;
Ahlers, Dirk;
Khaleghi, Marjan;
Lazarević, Slađana.
(2025)
Deliverable 9.9 Re-Value Inclusiveness and Diversity Plan 3.
European Commission
Research report
-
Navarra, Deborah;
Lazarević, Slađana;
Østerberg, Kamilla;
Eddings, Ryan;
Wyckmans, Annemie Bertha Marcella.
(2025)
Deliverable 1.2 — Learning Report (Initial Version).
European Commission
Research report
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Lazarević, Slađana;
Navarra, Deborah.
(2025)
Bauhaus Bites Vision towards Resilient, Inclusive, Healthy and Green Rural, Coastal and Urban Communities.
Norges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet
Academic monograph
2024
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Navarra, Deborah;
Bhattacharjee, Sagnik;
Mertens, Christine;
Wyckmans, Annemie Bertha Marcella.
(2024)
D1.4: Re-Value Innovation Cycles experience-based report 2.
European Commission
Research report
-
Wyckmans, Annemie Bertha Marcella;
Navarra, Deborah;
Khaleghi, Marjan;
Mohajermoghari, Nikoo;
Berbic, Nadira;
Poudyal, Shreejana;
Ahlers, Dirk.
(2024)
D1.2: Re-Value Innovation Cycles experience-based report 1.
European Commission
Research report
-
Khaleghi, Marjan;
Wyckmans, Annemie Bertha Marcella;
Vandevyvere, Han Hendrik B.;
Weir, Katherine Rose;
Voitenko, Galina;
Navarra, Deborah;
Camilli, Francesco;
Sørdal, Martin Helliesen;
Laschet, Marleen.
(2024)
NEB Impact Model Dominoes Game: Co-Benefits, Conflicts & Conversations.
Design
Artistic productions
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Khaleghi, Marjan;
Wyckmans, Annemie Bertha Marcella;
Vandevyvere, Han Hendrik B.;
Weir, Katherine Rose;
Voitenko, Galina;
Navarra, Deborah;
Camilli, Francesco;
Sørdal, Martin Helliesen;
Laschet, Marleen.
(2024)
NEB Impact Model Dominoes Game: Co-Benefits, Conflicts & Conversations.
Design
Books
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Lazarević, Slađana;
Navarra, Deborah.
(2025)
Bauhaus Bites Vision towards Resilient, Inclusive, Healthy and Green Rural, Coastal and Urban Communities.
Norges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet
Academic monograph
Report
-
Navarra, Deborah;
Bhattacharjee, Sagnik;
Mertens, Christine;
Wyckmans, Annemie Bertha Marcella.
(2024)
D1.4: Re-Value Innovation Cycles experience-based report 2.
European Commission
Research report
-
Quan, Xiangyu;
Wyckmans, Annemie Bertha Marcella;
Khaleghi, Marjan;
Ahlers, Dirk;
Mohajermoghari, Nikoo;
Navarra, Deborah.
(2025)
Deliverable 7.5 Re-Value Monitoring & Evaluation Report 2.
European Commission
Research report
-
Wyckmans, Annemie Bertha Marcella;
Navarra, Deborah;
Protopapadaki, Christina.
(2025)
Deliverable 7.7 Re-Value Impact Dialogues with NetZeroCities 2.
European Commission
Research report
-
Quan, Xiangyu;
Khaleghi, Marjan;
Navarra, Deborah;
Vergerio, Giulia.
(2025)
Deliverable D7.8 Re-Value Monitoring & Evaluation Report 3.
European Commission
Research report
-
Orlando, Arianna;
Wyckmans, Annemie Bertha Marcella;
Navarra, Deborah;
Vergerio, Giulia;
Khaleghi, Marjan;
Lazarević, Slađana.
(2025)
Deliverable 8.8 Communication, Dissemination and Exploitation Plan 3.
European Commission
Research report
-
Navarra, Deborah;
Ahlers, Dirk;
Poudyal, Shreejana;
Nygren, Anne Sunniva Bratsberg.
(2025)
Deliverable 9.8 Re-Value Consortium Plan 3.
European Commission
Research report
-
Navarra, Deborah;
Ahlers, Dirk;
Poudyal, Shreejana;
Berbic, Nadira;
Nygren, Anne Sunniva Bratsberg.
(2025)
D9.10 Re-Value Consortium Plan 4.
European Commission
Research report
-
Navarra, Deborah;
Mohajermoghari, Nikoo;
Wyckmans, Annemie Bertha Marcella;
Ahlers, Dirk;
Khaleghi, Marjan;
Lazarević, Slađana.
(2025)
Deliverable 9.9 Re-Value Inclusiveness and Diversity Plan 3.
European Commission
Research report
-
Wyckmans, Annemie Bertha Marcella;
Navarra, Deborah;
Khaleghi, Marjan;
Mohajermoghari, Nikoo;
Berbic, Nadira;
Poudyal, Shreejana;
Ahlers, Dirk.
(2024)
D1.2: Re-Value Innovation Cycles experience-based report 1.
European Commission
Research report
-
Navarra, Deborah;
Lazarević, Slađana;
Østerberg, Kamilla;
Eddings, Ryan;
Wyckmans, Annemie Bertha Marcella.
(2025)
Deliverable 1.2 — Learning Report (Initial Version).
European Commission
Research report
Teaching
Supervision
Supervising students MAAR
Co-supervising students working on M.Sc.Thesis in Urban Ecological Planning.
Outreach
2025
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Other presentationGotsch, Peter Andreas; Navarra, Deborah; Viese, Vija. (2025) Conference _ PEARLS Urban Rivers Campus Nairobi – Promoting a Community of Knowledge and Practice on Urban Rivers. Conference _ PEARLS Urban Rivers Campus Nairobi – Promoting a Community of Knowledge and Practice on Urban Rivers
2024
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LectureWyckmans, Annemie Bertha Marcella; Ahlers, Dirk; Khaleghi, Marjan; Weir, Katherine; Navarra, Deborah; Berbic, Nadira; Poudyal, Shreejana. (2024) Re-Value City Visit Burgas (Black Sea City Visits). Re-Value City Visit in Burgas
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Conference lectureNavarra, Deborah. (2024) Localising SDGs: Empirical insights on how SDGs can be localised in Horizon EU projects. NTNU Methods UEP
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LectureNavarra, Deborah. (2024) The Human Scale of City Design: Navigating the Interplay of Body, Form, and Res Publica in the 21st Century. UERA Seminar and General Assembly 2024
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Conference lectureNavarra, Deborah. (2024) Shifting Perspectives of Urban Planning. Insight from fieldwork in the Global South. NTNU Fieldtrip UEP
2023
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LectureWyckmans, Annemie Bertha Marcella; Junqueira de Andrade, Elisa; Navarra, Deborah; Reina, Alessia Helena Claudia Maria; Mohajermoghari, Nikoo. (2023) Open Living Lab Days Barcelona. Open Space Discussions: NEB Alliance (Travelling Tree of Desire)
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LectureJunqueira de Andrade, Elisa; Wyckmans, Annemie Bertha Marcella; Reina, Alessia Helena Claudia Maria; Navarra, Deborah. (2023) CrAFt Networking Island. Smart City Expo World Congress Barcelona
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LectureHansen, Cristine; Eiliott, Helene; Wyckmans, Annemie Bertha Marcella; Mohajermoghari, Nikoo; Reina, Alessia Helena Claudia Maria; Navarra, Deborah. (2023) Open Living Lab Days Barcelona 2023. The Art of transitioning - artistic contribution towards inclusive, aesthetic and sustainable future
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Lecture
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LectureReina, Alessia Helena Claudia Maria; Navarra, Deborah; Mohajermoghari, Nikoo; Wyckmans, Annemie Bertha Marcella. (2023) New European Bauhaus Alliance - Open Space Discussion. Open Living Lab Days Barcelona
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Lecture
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Conference lectureNavarra, Deborah; Camilli, Francesco. (2023) Innovation in Urban Planning and Design: New European Bauhaus. FP 4350 Bypolitiske teorier og planleggingsteori