RDI Advisory Board member David Orr was quoted recently in the New York Times on the topic of ergonomic seating in school classroooms. While classroom chairs may not represent mainstream resilient design, it’s a good example of the need to rethink how everything is designed in response to the challenges of today and tomorrow. And certainly, the typical school classroom with forward-facing desks and chairs — a concept that dates back centuries — is a ripe one for some innovative...
Read MoreGood neighbors make resilience
In an NPR interview, sociologist Eric Klinenberg reminds us that resilience involves not only smartly designed systems, buildings and infrastructure (our focus here at RDI). It’s also about the quality of communities and neighborhoods. “Vibrant, tight-knit neighborhoods could fare better in a disaster.” Interview is based on Klinenberg’s article “Adaptation” in the current issue of The New...
Read MoreKunstler’s calamities
If James Howard Kunstler’s predictions for 2013 (warning: salty-language) turn out to be right, we are going to need lots of resilient design to cope with the impacts. The peak-oil prophet lays out his case for calamities that include a market crash to Dow 4000, massive US gasoline shortages, continued Midwest drought, and for good measure, a major West Coast earthquake. What will bring most of this about, says Kunstler, is a massive debt collapse: “The debt mountains in the USA and elsewhere far overshadow the equity and commodity market molehills, and unpaid debt will...
Read MoreNice post about RDI at GLUMAC
Resilient design is scalable. It applies to individual building systems as well as to districts, cities and regions. Like sustainable design, resilient design can be best defined by a desired outcome rather than by a set of design strategies or features. — From an excellent post about resilient design by the global engineering firm GLUMAC, which included a nice mention of Resilient Design Institute.
Read MoreRDI discussed at Greenbuild
EcoHome Magazine reports on Alex Wilsons talk about RDI at the Vision 2020 session at Greenbuild
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