Designing cooler cities for a hotter world

Turning urban heat into action 

Urban heat is one of the most urgent and least visible challenges facing cities today. It affects public health, infrastructure performance, and everyday quality of life, especially for vulnerable communities. For Sahil, one of the most meaningful parts of his work has been helping turn that challenge into something cities can act on. 

A standout experience in his career at AtkinsRéalis was contributing to the World Bank’s Handbook on Urban Heat Management for Cities in the Global South. Sahil supported the technical writing of the publication and helped organize and facilitate a stakeholder workshop in Delhi. He also led the development of knowledge dissemination materials designed to make complex climate and heat-related insights more accessible and useful for diverse audiences. 

That combination of technical depth and practical communication matters. Urban heat is often under-recognized, yet its effects are immediate and unevenly felt. Work like this helps equip cities with tools they can use in planning, design, and policy. It also shows what purposeful impact looks like in practice, grounded in real community needs and built to inform decisions at scale.

Shaping resilient futures from Bangalore

Sahil is a Lead Urban Designer and Planner based in Bangalore, working in the Sustainable Futures team within the Environment practice at AtkinsRéalis. His background is in infrastructure and environmental design, and his focus is on advancing climate resilience and sustainable urban development.

In practical terms, that means translating climate risks into spatial strategies, shaping city-level plans, and supporting climate adaptation and sustainability initiatives. His work spans policy, planning, and implementation. It is about helping cities and clients move toward more resilient, low-carbon, and future-ready urban environments.

A research-by-design approach 

One phrase Sahil returns to is “research-by-design.” It captures something important about the way his team works. The goal is not simply to respond to a fixed brief. It is to bring evidence, design thinking, and multidisciplinary collaboration together in a way that helps shape better outcomes from the start. 

As Sahil sees it, engineering matters for sustainable development because it is about “translating vision into tangible, implementable solutions.” That translation is critical. Ambition on its own is not enough. Cities need approaches that are technically sound, grounded in context, and capable of moving from analysis into action. 

International collaboration is a defining part of that process. Sahil points to the value of working with multidisciplinary teams across geographies, especially when the issues are complex and global in nature. In urban climate work, better answers come from combining local understanding, technical expertise, and shared problem-solving.

Where digital innovation meets climate resilience 

Looking ahead, Sahil is especially energized by the growing role of digital tools in climate action and urban resilience. He sees remote sensing, digital twins, and AI as changing not only how cities are analyzed, but how decisions are made. 

These tools make it possible to move beyond static planning toward more dynamic, data-driven approaches. They can support better modeling of climate risks, real-time monitoring, and scenario testing. Just as importantly, they help close the gap between insight and implementation. Strategies become more precise, scalable, and responsive to the realities cities face. 

For professionals interested in urban planning, climate resilience, sustainable urban design, or environmental consultancy, that intersection of engineering and digital innovation is becoming increasingly important. It opens up new ways to understand urban systems and design interventions that are practical as well as forward-looking.

Working at the forefront of urban change

At AtkinsRéalis, Sahil sees real momentum in the way engineering expertise, digital capability, and cross-disciplinary collaboration are coming together. For him, that is what makes the future of this work so compelling. It is not technology for its own sake. It is technology used thoughtfully to support more resilient urban outcomes. 

And for anyone thinking about joining his team, his message is simple. This is a chance to work at the forefront of some of the most pressing challenges cities are facing today. The work is complex, grounded in real-world issues, and increasingly shaped by new tools and new forms of collaboration. For people who want to bring technical expertise to climate adaptation and sustainable urban transformation, it is a field with real urgency and lasting relevance.

Passionate about shaping sustainable cities? Explore opportunities at AtkinsRéalis and help build more resilient communities for the future.