Resilience: The Latest Architecture and News

The Italian Pavilion for the 17th Venice Architecture Biennale explores the capabilities for transformation and adaptation of Italian communities in an attempt to define tangible solutions to current global challenges. Titled "Resilient Communities", the exhibition curated by Alessandro Melis presents Italian research and innovation across many fields, exploring ideas for improving the conditions of the built environment and addressing climate change, with the hope of defining the building blocks for a sustainable future.

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The COVID-19 Pandemic is a disruptive moment for our world, and it’s poised to spur transformative shifts in design, from how we experience our homes and offices to the plans of our cities. The webcast series Design Disruption explores these shifts—and address issues like climate change, inequality, and the housing crisis— through chats with visionaries like architects, designers, planners and thinkers; putting forward creative solutions and reimagining the future of the built environment.

During the 20th century, Miami Beach reinvented itself several times, from Gilded Age mecca to Art Deco capital, to glamorous 1950s destination, only to become a faded has-been resort by the 1970s. The preservation movement that began in the 1970s and 1980s became its saving grace. By the 1990s Miami Beach, especially its South Beach neighborhood, was one of the hippest communities in the United States, drawing notable European residents like Gianni Versace.

KAAN Architecten has been investigating methods to ensure that cities continue to flourish. Working closely and experimenting primarily with the city of Amsterdam, the firm’s projects have been focusing on developing a healthy design and finding alternative possibilities to high-density architecture.

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Our cities, vulnerable by nature and design, have generated the biggest challenge that humankind has to face. With the vast majority of the population expected to settle in urban agglomerations, rapid urbanization is going to raise the issue of adaptability with future social, environmental, technological and economic transformations.

In fact, the main problematic of the decade questions how our cities will cope with fast-changing factors. It also looks into the main aspects to consider in order to ensure long-term growth. In this article, we highlight major points that help future-proof our cities and create a livable, inclusive and competitive fabric that adapts to any unexpected future transformation.

Moving away from its early exclusive focus on natural disasters, resilient architecture and design tackles the much tougher challenge of helping ecosystems regenerate.

Thirty years ago, as a high school student at the Cranbrook boarding school in suburban Detroit, I wrote a research-based investigative report on the environmental crisis for the student newspaper. I had been encouraged to do so by a faculty adviser, David Watson, who lived a double life as a radical environmentalist writing under the pseudonym George Bradford for the anarchist tabloid Fifth Estate. His diatribe How Deep Is Deep Ecology? questioned a recurring bit of cant from the radical environmental movement: Leaders of groups like Earth First! frequently disparaged the value of human life in favor of protecting nature.

White Arkitekter, in collaboration with Silicon Valley-based ReGen Villages, have joined forces to create fully circular, self-sufficient and resilient communities in Sweden. Inspired by computer games, the project puts in place organic food production, locally produced and stored energy, comprehensive recycling, and climate positive buildings.

This article was originally published on Washington Post, courtesy of Common Edge.

Hundred-year floods. Record-breaking Antarctic heat. Wildfires and drought. The stories appear with numbing regularity. And though the details differ, they all point to the same grim conclusion. We’re failing to address climate change. With carbon emissions continuing to rise, what were once dismissed as worst-case scenarios now look like the best we can hope for.

KPF and the Chiofaro Company have released images of their latest project The Pinnacle at Central Wharf, a high performance and resilient mixed-use development on the Boston Harbor waterfront. Aiming to reconnect Downtown Boston to the waterfront, the project also puts in place a new public space.

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Imagined by Sasaki, the Kabul Urban Design Framework creates a vision of what the city can become. The project generates a set of guidelines that can transform the Afghan capital into a model of sustainable, equitable, and resilient development.

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Kjellander Sjöberg, one of the leading architectural practices in Scandinavia, in collaboration with GHB Landskabsarkitekter, Mogens A. Morgen, Realise and Tyréns, was selected to design a strategic development plan for Faaborg. The coastal town in southern Denmark is facing many challenges like a high risk of flooding and an important decrease in its population.

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This article was originally published on Common Edge.

Conversations around resiliency today seem to imply that planners and designers might be capable of—might even be expected to—save every building and public space at risk. The sad truth is, however, that we cannot, and perhaps we should not. Climate change and its attendant sea level rise will radically redraw urban edges, forcing us to make difficult decisions. Even if we had the vast sums of money required to protect the precarious status quo, that might not be enough to stave off the inevitable.

So, then: What are our priorities? How do we choose what to save? How do we responsibly chart this uncertain future? I believe the answers to these and similar questions should begin with an honest assessment of three essential considerations:

Two Trees Management Company, a New York-based real estate development firm, has presented a master plan for the Northern Brooklyn waterfront, a new approach to urban resiliency. Designed by BIG and Field Operations, the project puts in place a mixed-use development and a resilient park.

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Architects and developers have always been on opposite ends of the construction world. While the first wanted to create dreamy spaces, the latter just wanted to cater to the basic needs. In these past few years, the world has witnessed significant changes, with the aggravation of climate-related issues, the evolution of technological solutions, and the newly acquired awareness and growth of the population.

While everything is transforming, building trends also evolved, mainly due to an alteration in people’s perceptions and priorities. However, one question remains unanswered: Could all these changes mean that the never-ending conflict between architects and developers reached some sort of common grounds? And could they finally be seeking one same goal, of a sustainable, resilient and inclusive future?

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