New Territorial Unit of the Urban Structure of Cities—The Urbocell

One of the most significant factors shaping the formation of new urban structures is climate change—including global warming and the associated emerging issues—heatwaves, storms, hurricanes, floods, droughts, fires and others. In recent times, new threats have emerged, including war risks, radiation, pandemics and other potential factors, whose devastating consequences are no less severe than those of climate change. Concerning these and other potential threats, this work aims to develop a new, sustainable urban structure element—a territorial unit or complex to be used in creating a new city planning framework. The formation of this sustainable urban unit or complex is based on three fundamental sustainability principles—social, ecological and economic—the harmonious interaction of which can enable the creation of a safe, healthy and convenient urban environment for living, working and leisure. Such a structural urban complex would consist of a group of neighbourhoods with various building densities, enclosed by public transport streets that integrate the complex into the city’s overall spatial structure. To support the complex’s functioning, a structural element—a green core—is planned at its centre, serving as a space for residents’ recreation, protection from various threats and social interaction. Given that this technical, structural and urban territorial unit, in terms of its autonomous functionality, structure, composition, significance and other characteristics, is identical to a natural cell, it is proposed (based on the principles of bionics) to name this structural urban territorial unit an ‘urban cell’ or ‘urbocell’ for semantic clarity.