Funded by the National Science Challenge, this Kāinga Ora (K-ORA) Urban Wellbeing research programme approaches cities as complex socio-ecological living environments, embedded within wider ecosystems. It recognises cities as primary catalysts for a necessary eco-cultural paradigm shift, activated through systemic regenerative transitions, amid compounding global crises: climate emergency, dualistic determinism, systemic inequity, technological disruption. Decentering the extractivist, ecologically-alienated paradigms of contemporary cities, the research grounds urban frameworks in ecological kinship and mauri-centered living-systems wellbeing to cultivate an eco-civilisational model for urban communities. Working across five interconnected urban vectors –ecology, energy, economics, community and built infrastructure – the research provides framework models, methods, and live examples for resilient, just-and-thriving living environments fit for this living planet.