Abstract: In the global context of rising numbers and impacts of nature-originated catastrophes affecting cities, the potential for built environment disciplines to deliver disaster risk reduction outcomes is increasingly being recognised as central to achieving sustainability. This potential, however, remains significantly focused on two levels of analysis: the macro-scale of settlement patterns managed by land use planning; and the micro-scale of single built structures and their construction standards, assessed on a case by case basis. While the macro and micro scales of activity are clearly important, it is also clear that many of the factors that are linked with disaster risks are also linked to the mid range, such as the relationships between buildings as fires spread; or the ways that people evacuate from buildings onto streets and parks. Urban design, a discipline located beyond the single lot of land but at a more specific and functionally grounded level than urban and regional planning, has not been rigorously examined as a tool for mitigating the risk of disasters. To contribute to this gap, this paper provides a framework for integration of urban design, based on core principles from both the urban design and disaster risk reduction fields of theory and practice, identified from relevant literature in these areas. These principles are then examined in terms of their convergences and divergences, leading to the identification of the benefits and key challenges for integration. Finally, the applicability of the integrated framework is demonstrated in the ways that urban design-related characteristics such as street arrangements, density of dwellings and site ratio contributed to emerging patterns of firespreading and house loss during the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires in Maiden Gully, Bendigo, Victoria.