The climate is changing, and so must domestic architecture. Premium materials--brick, stone, wood--and timeless design used to be the key to building homes that would last for generations. But a warming planet, coupled with severe weather events, has changed the equation and raised the stakes, sometimes literally. Aimed at homeowners, architects, and builders, this book presents sixteen innovative homes that represent the best of resilient-home practices in four categories--earth, wind, fire, and water--plus a list of resources from organizations such as FEMA and the National Fire Protection Agency. Few local building codes provide adequate protection from the forces of global warming, which will proliferate in this century. These examples illustrate the importance of next-level home design to help resist climate change--the most urgent issue of our time.
The thrill of victory…the agony of defeat. We're not talking about just any failure. Design failure. So public. So humiliating. How do designers who are really, really good (we swear!) turn a disaster into a triumph? Read this book and find out, as dozens of top names reveal the heartbreaking—and sometimes hilarious—mistakes they have made and talk about how they were able to grow from the experiences. Self-delusion, overcommitment, procrastination…they’re all here. Poor communication, missed deadlines, enraged clients…yes, they’re here too. Read Design Disasters and weep? No! Read Design Disasters and be inspired to find the silver lining in even the cloudiest situation. Featuring essays by: Henry Petroski • Alissa Walker • David Barringer • Allan Chocinov • Peter Blegvad • Ross MacDonald • Robert Grossman • Ina Saltz • Warren Lehrer • Rob Trostle • Ralph Caplan • Richard Saul Wurman • Marian Bantjes • Rick Meyerowitz • Amanda Bowers • David Jury • Veronique Vienne • Francis Levy • Colin Berry • Nick Curry • Debbie Millman, and more!
Designing to Heal explores what happens to communities that have suffered disasters, either natural or man-made, and what planners and urban designers can do to give the affected communities the best possible chance of recovery. It examines the relationship that people have with their surroundings and the profound disruption to people's lives that can occur when that relationship is violently changed; when the familiar settings for their lives are destroyed and family, friends and neighbours are displaced, incapacitated or killed. The book offers a model of the healing process, outlining the emotional journey that people go on as they struggle to rebuild their lives. It outlines the characteristics of the built environment that may facilitate people to travel as smoothly as possible down this road to recovery and suggests elements of the design process that can help achieve this goal. Designing to Heal highlights the importance of thinking about urban design as a way of nurturing hope and creating the optimal conditions to achieve social objectives.
A gripping novel about two young married couples--expectant parents and new friends--whose lives collide in a pile-up of deceits and indiscretions It was the exhilaration of new parenthood that first united Michael and Paul, outside the Brooklyn hospital where their wives, Rebecca and Jenny, had exiled them from the delivery room. For Paul, though, tragedy swiftly followed that euphoria. Hoping to speed his and Jenny's recovery, he turns to Michael for a favor, unwittingly kindling the spark of connection between these couples into the affair that will blow them apart. One year later, on the same morning that the catastrophes of their personal lives come to an explosive head, a mysterious crisis in Midtown Manhattan all but shuts down the city, leaving both men stranded--Michael at the northernmost tip of the island and Paul in a dark subway tunnel under the East River. Each must make the arduous trek home through record-breaking heat, nervously eyeing the thin plume of smoke above the skyline, though it's their private turmoils that loom largest. Told in the alternating voices of these charismatic but deeply flawed men, Little Disasters deftly cuts between the suspense of the citywide disaster and the history of secrets, lies, and losses that has brought these four intertwined lives to the brink. Smart, unsparing, and bitingly funny, Randall Klein's debut is an engrossing story of the bonds of love and family--and our unending urges to test them, even when we need them most.
In the wake of severe climatic events and terrorist acts and the emergence of dangerous technologies, communities, nations, and global organizations have diligently sought to create strategies to prepare for such events. Designing Resilience presents case studies of extreme events and analyzes the ability of affected individuals, institutions, governments, and technological systems to cope with disaster. This volume defines resilience as it relates to disaster management at specific stages: mitigation, prevention, preparation, and response and recovery. The book illustrates models by which to evaluate resilience at levels ranging from individuals to NGOs to governmental jurisdictions and examines how resilience can be developed and sustained. A group's or nation's ability to withstand events and emerge from them with their central institutions intact is at the core of resilience. Quality of response, capacity to improvise, coordination, flexibility, and endurance are also determinants. Individual case studies, including Hurricane Katrina in the United States, the London bombings, and French preparedness for the Avian flu, demonstrate effective and ineffective strategies.The contributors reveal how the complexity and global interconnectivity of modern systems-whether they are governments, mobile populations, power grids, financial systems, or the Internet-have transcended borders and created a new level of exposure that has made them especially vulnerable to extreme events. Yet these far-reaching global systems also possess the ability to alert and respond at greater speeds than ever before. The authors also analyze specific characteristics of resilient systems-the qualities they possess and how they become resilient-to determine if there are ways to build a system of resilience from the ground up. As such, Designing Resilience will inform a broad range of students and scholars in areas of public administration, public policy, and the social sciences.
“The first history of seismic engineering in San Francisco . . . spiced with survivor and eyewitness accounts. ”—Midwest Book Review For the past one hundred and fifty years, architects and engineers have quietly been learning from each quake and designing newer earthquake-resistant building techniques and applying them in an ongoing effort to save San Francisco. Bracing for Disaster is a fresh appraisal of a city responding to repeated devastation. In the language of a skilled teacher, Tobriner examines what really happened during the city’s earthquakes—which buildings were damaged, which survived, and who were the unsung heroes. Filled with more than two hundred photographs, diagrams, and illustrations, this is a revealing look at the history of buildings by a true expert, and it offers lessons not just for San Francisco but for any city beset by natural disasters. “The real saga is how a fast-growing city grapples with the reality that it has more to worry about than fires and fog. The core of the story is fairly technical, rooted in the crude intuitive ways in which builders reacted to a seismic threat they could neither measure nor define. But Tobriner crafts the story well.”—SFGate
This volume addresses the impacts of the Aral Sea disaster; disappearance of what was the world's fourth largest inland body of water. It argues this was the result of deliberate policy decisions. This volume is essential reading for everyone concerned with averting environmental disaster and in creating livable, sustainable communities.
This book represents a landmark effort to probe and analyze the theory and empirics of designing water disaster management policies. It consists of seven chapters that examine, in-depth and comprehensively, issues that are central to crafting effective policies for water disaster management. The author uses historical surveys, institutional analysis, econometric investigations, empirical case studies, and conceptual-theoretical discussions to clarify and illuminate the complex policy process. The specific topics studied in this book include a review and analysis of key policy areas and research priority areas associated with water disaster management, community participation in disaster risk reduction, the economics and politics of ‘Green’ flood control, probabilistic flood forecasting for flood risk management, polycentric governance and flood risk management, drought management with the aid of dynamic inter-generational preferences, and how social resilience can inform SA/SIA for adaptive planning for climate change in vulnerable areas. A unique feature of this book is its analysis of the causes and consequences of water disasters and efforts to address them successfully through policy-rich, cross-disciplinary and transnational papers. This book is designed to help enrich the sparse discourse on water disaster management policies and galvanize water professionals to craft creative solutions to tackle water disasters efficiently, equitably, and sustainably. This book should also be of considerable use to disaster management professionals, in general, and natural resource policy analysts. This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Natural Resource Policy Research.
Never has the demand been so urgent for architects to respond to the design and planning challenges of rebuilding post-disaster sites and cities. In 2011, more people were displaced by natural disasters (42 million) than by wars and armed conflicts. And yet the number of architects equipped to deal with rebuilding the aftermath of these floods, fires, earthquake, typhoons and tsunamis is chronically short. This book documents and analyses the expanding role for architects in designing projects for communities after the event of a natural disaster. The fifteen case studies featured in the body of the book illustrate how architects can use spatial sensibility and integrated problem-solving skills to help alleviate both human and natural disasters. The cases include: Lizzie Babister - Department of International Development, UK. Shigeru Ban - Winner of The Pritzker Architecture Prize 2014, Shigeru Ban Architects and Voluntary Architects’ Network, Japan. Eric Cesal – Disaster Reconstruction and Resiliency Studio and Architecture for Humanity, Japan. Hsieh Ying Chun – Atelier 3, Taiwan. Nathaniel Corum - Education Outreach and Architecture for Humanity, USA. Sandra D’Urzo - Shelter and Settlements and International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Switzerland. Brett Moore - World Vision International, Australia. Michael Murphy - MASS Design Group, USA. David Perkes - Gulf Coast Community Design Studio, USA. Paul Pholeros - Healthabitat, Australia. Patama Roonrakwit - Community Architects for Shelter and Environment, Thailand. Graham Saunders - International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Switzerland. Kirtee Shah - Ahmedabad Study Action Group, India. Maggie Stephenson - UN-HABITAT, Haiti. Anna Wachtmeister - Catholic Organisation for Relief and Redevelopment Aid, the Netherlands. The interviews and supporting essays show built environment professionals collaborating with post-disaster communities as facilitators, collaborators and negotiators of land, space and shelter, rather than as ‘save the world’ modernists, as often portrayed in the design media. The goal is social and physical reconstruction, as a collaborative process involving a damaged community and its local culture, environment and economy; not just shelter ‘projects’ that ‘build’ houses but leave no economic footprint or longer-term community infrastructure. What defines and unites the architects interviewed for Humanitarian Architecture is their collective belief that through a consultative process of spatial problem solving, the design profession can contribute in a significant way to the complex post-disaster challenge of rebuilding a city and its community.