Resilient Design Approaches

Scale_Urban/landscapeLevel_HowLevel_DetailedScale_HousingFoundation_AdaptationFoundation_Restorative
Written By Ioannis Lykouras

FUTURE AND GLOBAL RESPONSIBILITY

Recorded by Elizabeth Donovan, images by Veera Saastamoinen and Essi Nisonen

KEY READINGS 

  • Design for an Empathic World: Reconnecting People, Nature, and Self. Sim Van der Ryn. Island Press Washington, DC

  • Design with Nature Now. Frederick R. Steiner Lincoln Institute of Land Policy

  • https://www.resilientdesign.org/the-resilient-design-principles/

  • Resilient City: Landscape Architecture for Climate Change

  • Elke Mertens. Birkhäuser

  • Landscape Architecture and Environmental Sustainability - Creating Positive Change Through Design. Joshua Zeunert. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  • Architecture and Resilience: Interdisciplinary Dialogues. Kim Trogal, Irena Bauman, Ranald Lawrence, Doina Petrescu. Routledge

INSPIRATIONAL BUILT EXAMPLES

  • Makoko Floating School.Lagos, Nigeria

  • Amphibious House. Baca. United Kingdom 

  • U-house. Ushijima Architects. Biwa-ko, Japan

  • The LIFT House. Prithula Prosun. Dhaka

  • Schoonschip. Space&Matter.  Amsterdam, Neatherlands.

  • The Six: Disabled Veteran Housing. BrooksScarpa +.  Los Angeles, CA, USA

RESILIENT DESIGN APPROACHES

Resilient design approaches entail the strategic integration of principles and strategies that enhance a building's capacity to withstand and recover from various stressors, such as natural disasters, climate change, and socio-economic shifts. This approach emphasizes not only the durability of structures, but also their adaptability and ability to bounce back in the face of adversity. Resilience operates across scales and timeframes, encompassing buildings, communities, and regions. 

  • At the building scale, strategies encompass handling climate impacts, situating critical systems smartly, using future climatic models, passive survivability, robust materials, beauty, energy optimization, water conservation, waste solutions, local resourcing, and hazard-resistant specifications. 

  • Community resilience involves social structures, local food systems, transport alternatives, stormwater management, communication hubs, education, and infrastructure planning. 

  • Regionally, policies must value ecosystem services, protect aquifers, develop transportation and renewable energy networks, encourage diverse economies, and support regional manufacturing.

While total resilience might be unattainable, incremental steps can enhance resilience progressively, positioning systems and societies for better preparedness and responsiveness.

Ioannis Lykouras
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