Resilient Architecture: The Latest Architecture and News

Facing an interconnected planetary climate crisis, biodiversity loss, and resource depletion, regenerative design emerges as a pathway toward building resilient and ecologically attuned rural futures. At the intersection of architecture, agriculture, and local ecosystems, new models of resilient, self-sufficient agricultural practices are emerging. These projects are not grand industrial systems but small-scale, precise, and deeply contextual architectural interventions that create spaces that foster sustainable cultivation while respecting environmental rhythms, local materials, and community knowledge.

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It has been nearly three weeks since one of California's most devastating wildfires began, triggering an immense effort to combat the blaze and mitigate further damage. As firefighters work to contain the remaining flames, the city braces for its first significant winter rainfall, raising concerns about flooding and landslides that may exacerbate the already extensive destruction.

Amid these challenges, the wildfire has spurred widespread reflection at local and global levels. Discussions have emerged on topics such as the insurance system, firefighting infrastructure, water resources, global warming's role in high-wind fire conditions, and the impact of landscape design, particularly the use of non-native vegetation.

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SO-IL (Solid Objectives – Idenburg Liu) is an architectural design firm based in Brooklyn, New York, founded in 2008 by Florian Idenburg and Jing Liu. Known for an architecture deeply engaged with social, cultural, and environmental contexts, the studio focuses on exploring innovative materials, creating fluid spatial experiences, and prioritizing ecological sustainability. SO-IL's work spans various scales and program types, reflecting their versatile approach to design. In 2024, their housing project 450 Warren in Brooklyn was selected as ArchDaily's Building of the Year by the audience in the housing category.

In their latest book, In Depth: Urban Domesticities Today, SO-IL explores the evolving concept of home in contemporary urban contexts, transforming it "from a source of vulnerability into a tool for empowerment." The book redefines domesticity as an active and shared experience and examines how architects can address pressing urban challenges such as affordability, density, and sustainability. SO-IL's work advocates for flexible, resilient housing that fosters community while integrating ecological and social dimensions. ArchDaily spoke with the architects about the innovative solutions and ideas presented in the book, delving into how their projects challenge conventional systems and envision a future where architecture is a tool for empowerment.

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In architectural design, materials convey narratives, shaping how spaces are perceived and experienced. Weathering steel, often known by its genericized trademark name, Corten steel, stands out for its ability to evolve, transforming into a medium that tells its own story. It represents a group of steel alloys that form a stable external layer of rust that replaces the need for paint to protect the steel while allowing it to develop in time. Its weathered patina serves as more than a functional shield; it becomes an aesthetic language, a testament to the interplay between architecture and nature. This ever-changing surface bridges the ephemeral and the enduring, offering architects a material that grows richer with age.

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Mountainous and high-altitude regions are considered to be among the most fragile ecosystems on Earth. From melting glaciers to land erosion, these environments face mounting threats from climate change, making it imperative to reimagine how architecture and its supporting infrastructure are designed for such places.

The communities settled in mountain ecosystems are especially vulnerable to the impacts of climate change because of their proximity to early symptoms of changing environments and lack of access to adaptive resources and materials. Beyond all poetic aspirations of building and living in mountain environments, it is an urgent challenge to design solutions that properly resist hostile climatic conditions and promote sustainable and safe human settlements in mountainous regions.

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This article was originally published on Common Edge.

About a decade ago, the term "resilience planning" became ubiquitous in climate circles. That shift, in the wake of increasingly unpredictable events, was shaped in part by the Rockefeller Foundation's 100 Resilient Cities program, a six-year, $160 million effort to establish chief resilience officers in cities all over the world. Out of that program, which ended in 2019, emerged its successor, Resilient Cities Catalyst (RCC), a New York–based nonprofit engaged in what it calls "capacity building" projects. For Climate Week, I talked to Sam Carter, one of RCC's founding principals, about his definition of resilience, the organization's planning and philanthropic method, and the challenge of scaling up climate efforts.

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Roberto Burle Marx is often celebrated as a pioneering figure in landscape architecture, particularly for his innovative approach to integrating nature within urban environments. His work, characterized by a deep respect for native flora and a commitment to ecological balance, offers valuable lessons for contemporary landscape architects. At a time when climate change and biodiversity loss are pressing global concerns, revisiting Burle Marx's principles provides insight into creating urban spaces that are not only functional and aesthetically pleasing but also resilient and sustainable.

From the 1930s to the 1990s, Burle Marx's work anticipated many of today's concerns about sustainability and urban well-being. Long before terms like "sustainable design" or "green infrastructure" became commonplace, Burle Marx was already advocating for the use of native plants, recognizing their role in creating self-sustaining ecosystems that required minimal intervention. His projects often transformed neglected urban areas into vibrant, ecologically balanced spaces that not only improved the environment but also enhanced the quality of life for city dwellers.

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Copenhagen-based multidisciplinary studio BIOSIS has revealed the design for a new housing complex in Nuuk, Greenland. The project aims to create a minimal-impact and climate-driven design by integrating the intervention in the area's natural terrain and adapting the solutions to the local conditions. The Qullilerfik housing project consists of five prism-shaped residences created to complement the sloped site, initially considered unsuitable.

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Over-providing traditionally implies offering more than is necessary, often carrying a negative connotation due to the potential for excess and waste. However, could there be scenarios within the built environment where over-providing proves advantageous? The question critically examines how overprovisioning might enhance a building's flexibility and adaptability to diverse and evolving conditions.

The underlying assumption of accurately providing what is needed for a building is that stakeholders—including owners, architects, and designers—can accurately predict and cater to a structure's current and future needs. This assumption, however, is challenging to realize, as societal, economic, and cultural shifts frequently occur in unpredictable ways. In this context, over-providing emerges as a counterintuitive yet potentially beneficial strategy. As buildings and structures inevitably transform, those designed with inherent adaptability reduce the need for costly renovations or complete rebuilds.

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Alarming cases of climate disasters are a constant presence in world news. Last month's floods in southern Brazil gained special attention from heat waves and forest fires to droughts and cyclones. This tragedy, which left over half a million people homeless, was understood to be the result of a combination of factors, including human actions that have devastated ecosystems to create environmentally irresponsible cities.

In this context, the work of Beijing-based architect Kongjian Yu, founder of the landscape architecture firm Turenscape, has gained international visibility and recognition, which included receiving the 2023 Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Prize (“Oberlander Prize”). His "sponge cities" concept, designed to address and prevent urban flooding in the face of accelerated climate change, was adopted as national policy in China in 2013. This approach prioritizes large-scale nature-based infrastructures such as wetlands, greenways, and parks.

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The Harvard Graduate School of Design (Harvard GSD) has announced the Class of 2025 Loeb Fellows. Ten practitioners and activists from around the world have been selected to join the Loeb Fellowship program to expand their careers and advance their programs and initiatives focused on equity, resilience, and collective action.

The ten selected practitioners are mid-career professionals coming from diverse backgrounds. Each one has been recognized for initiating practices that are transforming public spaces and urban infrastructures, addressing public health concerns and environmental injustices, as well as housing needs and efforts to preserve the cultural, natural, and architectural heritage of diverse regions from all continents.

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The world has changed, and accepting this fact is no longer a matter of choice but survival. Our rainfall patterns, periods of drought, average temperatures, sea levels—everything is in constant flux. The denialist stance of many countries, including Brazil, has led to catastrophic situations like the one we are facing now.

The floods that devastated the southern region of the country in recent days cannot be considered isolated incidents. Due to global warming, climate events like this will become increasingly frequent. In other words, unfortunately, we cannot prevent them from happening, but we can—and must—make our cities more resilient to these situations.

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As we reflect on the tumultuous events of 2023, it becomes evident that the challenges posed by changing environmental conditions have left an indelible mark on communities worldwide. In response, architects and urban planners have set out, searching for the ways in which their actions can help create safer environments for communities worldwide, responding with both fast-to-deploy emergency architectures and long-term strategies to build resilience and mitigate risks.

Beyond merely responding to events like the devastating earthquakes in Turkey, Syria, and Morocco, or the widespread flooding in Libya or Pakistan, professionals are attempting to take proactive approaches, developing strategies that extend from predictive modeling to the application of re-naturalizing techniques or the ongoing research into the physics of safer and resilient structures.

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In several cities in Brazil, the amount of rainfall has already surpassed the total accumulated for the rest of the year. Flooding, inundations, and landslides are commonplace news in regional newspapers. In this chaotic scenario, a study presented by the National Confederation of Municipalities states that, amidst the rains in the south and drought in the north, 5.8 million Brazilians have been directly affected by disasters in 2023, whether by loss of lives, displacements, or significant economic damages.

Unfortunately, the outlook is not promising either. The national version of the renowned IPCC climate change report, compiled by the Brazilian Panel on Climate Change (PBMC), has already warned that Brazil, along with other countries in Latin America, will not only experience rising temperatures due to climate change but will also witness a drastic shift in its rainfall patterns. In other words, here in the south, we better get used to the sound of rain on our windows, while the north should brace for historic droughts.

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Following the extreme floods that affected Pakistan in 2022, architect Yasmeen Lari the Heritage Foundation of Pakistan pledged to help build one million resilient houses in the country. In 2022, 33 million people have been displaced, and an estimated 500,000 houses have been destroyed or severely damaged. In September 2022, Lari’s NGO launched a target program to start rebuilding and to help communities protect themselves against future disasters. The program is built on Lari’s expertise in working with the communities and employing vernacular and local building materials to achieve resilient and sustainable structures. According to the Heritage Foundation of Pakistan, one-third of the goal has already been reached.

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The terms resiliency and sustainability, although similar in meaning, refer to different design approaches in the context of architecture and cities. Sustainability involves the preservation of natural resources to uphold ecological equilibrium, while resiliency entails the ability to rebound, adapt, and persist in moments of adversity. These concepts greatly influence and complement each other, especially in cases of designing disaster-resilient buildings. Conventional design processes relating to resilient infrastructure have been based on principles of structural robustness and integrity as a measure against anticipated natural disasters. However, sustainable resiliency points at the opportunity of reinforcing buildings by embedding them in biological and ecological systems.

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This article was originally published on Common Edge.

It has been a bull market for downbeat urban reporting since the pandemic arrived in town. And it isn’t hard to see why. In 2020, central U.S. cities went from “comeback” success stories to ghost towns; transit lost nearly all ridership; tens of thousands of stores and restaurants shuttered; and many of the affluent decamped to the suburbs and distant Zoom towns. 

The UIA World Congress of Architects 2023 is an invitation for architects from around the world to meet in Copenhagen July 2 – 6 to explore and communicate how architecture influences all 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). For more than two years, the Science Track and its international Scientific Committee have been analyzing the various ways in which architecture responds to the SDGs. The work has resulted in the formulation of six science panels: design for Climate Adaptation, design for Rethinking Resources, design for Resilient Communities, design for Health, design for Inclusivity, and design for Partnerships for Change. An international call for papers was sent out in 2022 and 296 of more than 750 submissions from 77 countries have been invited to present at the UIA World Congress of Architects 2023 in Copenhagen. ArchDaily is collaborating with the UIA to share articles pertaining to the six themes to prepare for the opening of the Congress.

In this third feature, we met with co-chairs of Design for Resilient Communities Anna Rubbo, Senior Researcher, Center for Sustainable Urban Development (CSUD), The Climate School, Columbia University, and Juan Du, Professor and Dean of the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design, University of Toronto.

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