This design led research presents an alternative approach to the upgrading of informal settlements in Egypt, with particular reference to The Max Fisherman Village in the Norwest of the country. The proposition challenges dominant policy and planning approaches to the upgrading of precarious informal settlements. It argues for an environmentally driven strategy of incremental re-cycling (of land and built form) which uses land re-assembly as the central tool to forge a common ground of collaboration and partnerships among the local community, the state and the private sector. In so doing, it promotes new mixes and intensification of uses as well as new social alliances. It proposes a triple R strategy – Retreat, Resistance and Resilience – being the ‘first R’ the cornerstone of the approach. Retreat refers to the consolidation of land through the use of voids and re-assembling of plots for a process of recycling, ‘decanting’ and incremental upgrading, intensification and densification of the area. The hypothesis is that the emerging pattern and legal framework of land ownership in the area would ensure that even the poorer residents and families would have a share of the social, economic and environmental value generated through the processes of land reassembly.