Resilient Design on the UN Agenda As It Prepares for Climate Change
The United Nations, climate change, and resilient design: a day at the U.N. World Habitat conference
Read MoreThe New York City Buildings Resiliency Task Force Presents Recommendations
The report just released by the Buildings Resiliency Task Force presents 33 detailed recommendations for improving the resiliency of New York City buildings.
Read MoreBigger, Longer Heat Storms Are Coming Soon: Will Your Building Keep Its Cool?
Editor’s note: Tom Phillips and I have been corresponding about the risks of temperature extremes, and I invited him to put together an article on the topic so that others could benefit from his research. I am posting that here. -Alex Wilson Floods and ice storms cause some the biggest economic losses in the US, but heat storms are the leading cause of death over the last 10 years among weather events in the US. Heat storms cause 1500 to 2000 deaths per year in the US. This number is projected to double or triple in the coming decades, and it will increase in a nonlinear fashion. The...
Read MoreRDI’s Resilient Design Principles – Need Your Feedback
The Resilient Design Institute held a retreat of our Advisory Board in March and, among other issues, addressed how to describe resilience. Out of that discussion emerged the Resilient Design Principles, which I am posting here. Consider this a working draft that will evolve over time, but I wanted to get it posted and solicit feedback. What’s missing? Is there redundancy? How could these principles be clarified? Also included here is the working RDI definition of resilience. Any and all feedback is welcome. Either use the comments field below to post your thoughts or, if you’d prefer, you...
Read MoreHow biology informs resilient design
We’ve just come across a very thoughtful article by Michael Mehaffy and Nikos Salingaros called “Toward Resilient Architectures 1: Biology Lessons” in MetropolisMag. Mehaffy and Salingaros draw a number of lessons from biological systems and use them to draw conclusions about how resilient human systems must be designed. Here’s what they suggest resilient cities must be like: 1) They have inter-connected networks of pathways and relationships. They are not segregated into neat categories of use, type, or pathway, which would make them vulnerable to failure. 2) They...
Read More2012 CERES Insurance Industry Study: Progress Slow, Urgently Needed
Climate-change-related disasters threaten industry profitability, and may drive less-prepared companies from a variety of asset and risk classes. A reduction in the availability and affordability of insurance and risk management services can threaten the economy…
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