The main goal of this contribution is to explore the role of the Masterplan project (MP) of Politecnico di Torino concerning the implementation of a resilient planning framework for a university campus. In a complex negotiation process involving different institutions inside and outside academia, as well as architects and urban designers, the MP took a major role on the technical, political and cultural level of the actual city transformation. This paper takes MP as a case study to reflect upon the importance of the spatialisation of data and problems to nurture and activate innovation in a resilient urban making process. Lessons from this case are drawn in the light of the current literature review of city resilience implementations, as well as of the evolving twofold role of university both as urban development protagonist and its relationship with the city. Many resilience drivers are indeed envisaged in the MP case study, which meets basic needs, supports livelihoods and employment, promotes cohesive and engaged communities, fosters economic prosperity, enhances and provides protective natural & man-made assets, provides reliable communication and educational activities, promotes leadership and effective management, empowers a broad range of stakeholders and fosters long-term and integrated planning. Recommendation concerning skills and methodologies for a new city-university relationship are drawn by the MP success case: deictic, resilient (adaptable), able to catalyse different cultural, political and architectonical views and connecting different level of transformation. Eventually, this contribution acknowledges the crucial role of a platform enabling top-down policies and bottom-up initiatives, that is still missing in the panorama of effective implementation strategies, paying the price of the vague discourses gap between theories and practices, moving away from the usual normative statements characteristic to the literature around urban resilience.