stem_space [urban adaptability enhancers]"Dynamic" is probably the best word one could use to describe a city, yet this particular feature is almost every time bounded by a rigid infrastructure that we will henceforth call "the grid".It is precisely this rigid-grid dependency of the city that makes it most vulnerable in times of crisis, be it an economic, energetic, social or any other type of menace. Regarding the urbanity as a "species" obeying the evolutionary path [with long periods of stability followed by chaotic phase transitions] we searched for examples of how other complex organisms respond to extreme situations, and found that the ones being the most responsive and able to rapidly adapt to fast changing environments survive and maintain their degree of complexity[even thrive], whereas those incapable of coping with their shifting conditions either roll back to a stage of lower complexity or disappear altogether.The human body is a perfect example of a soft design who owes its current evolutionary complexity to this very capacity of adapting to various extreme scenarios, all of this without undergoing major structural changes, but instead due to the flexibility of the relations present in its systems.We've focused in our approach to a particular element of the human arsenal of responses to crisis situations: the stem cells. They have an extraordinary capacity of evolving into virtually any specific type of body cell under both external and internal stimuli of the body, without being pre-programmed, therefore gaining their functions from complex interactions within the system of our body, acting locally, in response to specific "problems" of specific organs or even smaller constituents. We imagined in this project an architectural equivalent of these stem cells, called the stem_spaces whose role within the city will be that of enhancers of the adaptability that an urban system requires in order to overcome crisis periods by providing the city with the flexibility and self-sufficiency needed in such "transitional" times. The urban stem cell, the stem_space, is a prefabricated SOFT_SPACE, in the sense that, after being manufactured, its purpose remains undefined and its only "abilities" are those of self-sufficiency [i.e. of providing itself with green, renewable energy, captured by its responsive skin, which can then be stored within its "nucleus"] and of clustering [connecting to other stem_space cells]. The stem_spaces are then distributed throughout the city to different sized communities, and it is the particular LOCAL problems of those communities that will give a functional purpose to each urban stem cell, as, by their interconnection, they can form new urban tissues and even new urban organs as a response to the specific needs of specific groups, allowing the latter to become independent from the rigidity and possible failure/collapse of the GRID. While human stem cells need to divide, since once specialized, they cannot revert to the stem status, the urban stem_spaces don't require self-division, as, once distributed, they can be "reconfigured" in response to new community demands induced by the crisis situation and to serve new functions within the same tissue or even give birth to completely new urban tissues/organs as needed.Should a community require it, they can be part of a water recycling "urban organ", a solar power-plant, a bio-crop greenhouse, a sanatorium, workshops, etc. with spaces being defined either within each stem_space (such as a hydro or air-phonic mini-farm, a family-size manufacture, small offices, personal healing spaces) or by interconnecting them as to serve larger urban functions.Once the crisis period is over, the city would already have made its first steps towards grid independence, by providing an alternative yet equally complex urban system, much more responsive & flexible, that will help it overcome and even prevent future crisis scenarios..