Editorial: Post-organic city: a city without organs

The Research Topic Post-organic city: a city without organs was set out to interrogate the contemporary city by challenging one of the most persistent metaphors in the history of urbanism: the city as an organism composed of specialized organs, hierarchies, and functional divisions. Inspired by philosophical critiques of functionalism, by ecological thinking, and by the recognition that climate disruption is dissolving the boundaries between natural, artificial, human, and more-than-human spheres, this Research Topic asked researchers to propose design, analytical, and political frameworks for a city that no longer operates through organs but through distributed, adaptive, multispecies, and multisensory forms of inhabitation.

The contributions gathered in this Research Topic, six accepted peer-reviewed manuscripts across architecture, urban ecology, design research, energy studies, and mobility analysis, demonstrate how the shift toward a post-organic understanding of the city is already underway. Together, they offer models for cities that operate as hybrid ecologies, rhizomatic infrastructures, and multi-layered socio-technical systems in which resilience emerges not from fixed structures but from fluid relations, overlapping scales, and non-linear social–environmental feedback.

This Research Topic was edited under the leadership of scholars working across architecture, ecological economics, and design research, and was supported by the EKOPOL Research Group of the University of the Basque Country, whose long-standing work in ecological economics, political ecology, and socio-environmental justice directly aligns with the post-organic agenda. EKOPOL's emphasis on material flows, urban metabolism, energy transitions, and social inequality provides a critical backdrop for understanding why cities must move beyond organic metaphors and linear planning paradigms to confront the polycrisis of the 21st century.

The manuscript, Mixed eco-neighborhood: Matsaria as a model of post-industrial transformation by Odiaga et al., provides a foundational articulation of the post-organic condition by reinterpreting a disused industrial fabric as a resilient and adaptive urban ecology. Rather than treating abandoned industrial areas as obsolete organs of a past economic body, the authors propose a decalogue of strategies based on reuse, hybridization, and multispecies integration. Their case study in Eibar, developed through inductive analysis of industrial regeneration precedents, demonstrates how post-natural design, hybrid buildings, and multispecies coexistence can guide the transformation of obsolete zones into dynamic, distributed urban fabrics that no longer rely on functional specialization. The manuscript directly embodies the Research Topic's central metaphor: a city without organs is one in which functions are not segregated, where adaptation replaces optimization, and where the ecological and social life of the city emerges through flexible, continuously negotiated spatial practices.

In the contribution, Human-centered integration of small wind turbines in urban environments, Bereziartua-Gonzalez et al. expand the post-organic vision by reframing renewable energy systems not as technical organs appended to the urban body but as distributed socio-technical actors embedded in everyday life. Their semi-systematic review foregrounds human-centered design, co-creation, and energy democratization, emphasizing how small wind turbines (SWTs) can become instruments of citizen participation and urban identity rather than intrusive mechanical organs. Crucially, their work highlights barriers like noise, aesthetics and safety but argues that embracing participatory design allows cities to integrate renewable infrastructures non-hierarchically, aligning with post-organic principles in which inhabitants co-shape technological landscapes, dissolving boundaries between infrastructure and lived experience.

The mini-review contribution under the title Climate adaptation in urban space: the need for a transdisciplinary approach (Lenzi et al.) synthesizes emerging methodologies in architecture, social innovation, multispecies design, and multisensory studies, arguing that effective climate adaptation requires abandoning rigid planning “organs” in favor of layered, transdisciplinary adaptive systems. The proposed integrated framework positions cities as living, perceptual, ecological, and cultural assemblages, where adaptation involves not only physical interventions but also shifts in soundscapes, bodily experiences, species relationships, and community practices. Climate shelters, biodiversity-inclusive design, and multisensory mapping are presented as tools for cultivating a city that reorganizes itself without fixed organs, continuously adjusting through distributed ecological and social awareness.

The manuscript, Designing the city of the future: gender-inclusive strategies for sustainable urban mobility in the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area by Mendiola and González, extends the post-organic framework to the socio-political domain through a rigorous econometric analysis of gender gaps in mobility. Their findings show that women's mobility patterns are constrained not only by built environment characteristics but also by structural socioeconomic inequalities, revealing that mobility is not an equalizing organ of the urban body but a differentially accessible socio-technical system. The authors demonstrate that improvements in public transport disproportionately benefit women, but that infrastructural changes alone cannot eliminate gender disparities. The post-organic implication is clear: mobility cannot be treated as a singular functional organ, as it is a distributed, relational system shaped by domestic responsibilities, access to vehicles, and safety concerns. A truly post-organic city requires de-hierarchizing mobility, embedding equity at every scale of urban planning.

Collantes and Odiaga' contribution In between, an artefact: multiscale hybrid architectural projects for the peri-urban landscape explores one of the most emblematic geographies of the post-organic city: the peri-urban fringe. Through five case studies, the authors conceptualize peri-urban areas as fluid, rhizomatic systems characterized by hyper-connectivity, programmatic indeterminacy, and multifunctionality. Rather than treating these landscapes as incomplete or transitional organs between rural and urban spheres, they position them as territorial assemblages, capable of generating new centralities and infrastructural meanings. Their analysis emphasizes hybrid architectural artifacts that recompose fragmented territories, resonating strongly with the Research Topic's call to envision urban forms beyond rigid classification.

The manuscript Material and social footprint of rooftop photovoltaics in Vitoria-Gasteiz authored by Tro-Cabrera et al., aligns directly with EKOPOL's research agenda and illustrates the planetary implications of the post-organic metaphor. Using life cycle assessment (LCA), the authors model the city's rooftop photovoltaic potential and demonstrate both substantial environmental gains and significant material and social trade-offs, particularly regarding metals such as gold (28.5% of global reserves), silver (29.4%), and tin (56.2%) required for the RPV expansion. Their social-LCA results highlight persistent inequalities in the global supply chain, where activity is externalized to developing countries, reproducing extractive patterns. This manuscript makes explicit that the post-organic city must be understood not only as a local spatial system but as a planetary socio-ecological actor, embedded in global flows of materials, labor, and environmental burdens.

Editorial Synthesis and conclusions: Toward a Post-Organic Urban Paradigm

Across the diverse methodologies and scales explored: industrial regeneration, renewable energy design, climate adaptation, mobility analysis, peri-urban architecture, and material–social LCA, three transversal themes emerge:

• - The dissolution of functional specialization

All six manuscripts critique or replace the idea that cities operate through discrete organs (industry, mobility, housing, energy). Instead, they embrace overlapping functions, hybrid spaces, and distributed agency.

• - Integration of more-than-human multisensory dimensions

The contributions foreground ecological entanglement, multispecies coexistence, and intangible perceptual layers (sound, smell, affect) as essential to future urban design.

• - Recognition of planetary interdependence and socio-environmental justice

Material flows, energy transitions, and gender inequalities reveal that cities cannot be understood in isolation; they are deeply interconnected nodes in global socio-ecological networks.

In our role as editors, we wish to thank the authors for the stimulating and thoughtful contributions received. We are honored to have assembled this collection of manuscripts, which we hope will act as intellectual provocations and offer a modest, manifesto-like step toward a more holistic, inclusive and effective vision of adaptation in a rapidly changing global context.

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