Foreword Vivian Brady-Phillips Head, Strategic Initiatives, Urban Transformation, World Economic ForumOliver Martin Chair, the Davos Baukultur Alliance; Head, Baukultur Section, Swiss Federal Office of Culture The Alliance was created to catalyse a comprehensive shift in how we imagine, plan and shape the living environment – not as an industry apart, but as one of our most powerful levers for collective resilience, regeneration and well-being. Achieving high-quality Baukultur is about developing, regenerating and preserving places, rooted in a deep commitment to supporting quality of life and strengthening our social fabric. Vibrant places promote economic opportunity and improve our health while respecting a sense of local ownership and community values. This human-centred approach recognizes that our choices about the built environment shape our culture. The various disciplines that build our world – architecture, urban planning, construction and engineering among them – and our decisions about public spaces, materials and cultural preservation all impact how we experience life and how well we can thrive. We believe that places must become not just sustainable, but transformational – places that restore ecosystems, promote equity and reflect cultural identities that bring us together. This report series offers approaches for action. It is the culmination of a year of global collaboration – across governments, businesses, practitioners and civil society – through the Alliance’s thematic areas on resilience and climate adaptation, sustaina- bility and circularity, and affordability and social value creation. Each chapter presents strategies, enabling tools and policy frameworks that translate the promise of high-qual- ity Baukultur into practice. The Alliance’s holistic approach integrates ecological restoration, cultural preservation, affordability and community agency, aiming to create thriving, future-proofed places that honour cultural heritage and promote environmen- tal regeneration. This means considering whether the local economy is inclusive, the most vulnerable are housed, choices are sustainable and health is supported. What binds these diverse areas of focus is a shared vision: that high-quality places for people are not an afterthought, but a foundation. Whether we are retrofitting our cities for climate resilience, regenerating land and materials, or creating equitable models for housing and infrastructure, what matters most is how these interventions shape human experience. Do they promote dignity, belonging and trust? Do they invite agency and creativity? Do they regenerate life – culturally, socially and ecologically? This is the standard that we must hold ourselves to, as laid out in the Davos Baukultur Quality System and its eight criteria for high-quality – governance, func- tionality, environment, economy, diversity, context, sense of place and beauty. Across these critical issues and areas is the need for forward-thinking col- laboration, and partnerships are critical to addressing the challenges facing our communities. Coordinated strategies that address all phases of development and redevelopment are essential for places to adapt to the simultaneous local and global pressures facing places. Public-private partnerships (PPPs), cross-sector coalitions and community engagement are key to driving meaningful change. Collective efforts are necessary to address current challenges and build resilient, sustainable and impactful outcomes for communities globally. The potential for trans- formative change through intentional and collaborative urban development is significant. Leaders from government, business and civil society are encouraged to review and consider whether the approaches and models presented in this report can help them embrace a radical shift rooted in holistic, global principles of high-quality Baukultur. Baukultur is a shared language and a global commitment to shaping environments that nourish both people and planet. It reminds us that every material we choose, every public space we design, every regulation we write and every partnership we forge speaks to the kind of world we want to live in. We invite you to explore this report not simply as tools and practices, but as a provocation: what if the built environment could be a driver of planetary repair, not harm? What if affordability, beauty, circularity, resilience and cultural continuity wer - en’t trade-offs – but the starting point? The Davos Baukultur Alliance was created to answer these questions – with conviction, collaboration and care. We are proud to stand with the global – and growing – network of individuals and institutions that are making this fundamental shift real, and we look forward to what we will shape together. 5The places and communities we build today will determine how well we meet the defining challenges of our time – climate disruption, social fragmentation, economic volatility and environmental degradation. These crises are no longer abstract; they are compounding, accelerating and reshaping the very spaces we inhabit. This is why the Davos Baukultur Alliance exists.

From Principles to Practice DIGITAL