Archinect - News

Amidst increasing wildfires, should we retreat or regroup? A UC Davis proposal recommends taking the high road despite challenges

2022-07-19T16:13:00-04:00

As Spain, France, Greece, and Germany grapple with a spate of historic wildfires that have gripped the region in recent weeks, a group of researchers in the American West is now advocating for fairly extreme shifts in development trends there which would buck others currently favored by the industry that involve more direct applications of design in the built environment.

Writing in FastCompany this week, UC Davis professors Emily Schlickman, Brett Milligan, and Stephen M. Wheeler proposed a three-point plan that entails zoning changes (including San Diego’s approach of avoiding hillside development) and placing severe limitations on new construction, which are seen as a large part of the problem in Northern California and other places.

The trio pointed to recent examples from Los Angeles County and an existing law in Oregon as frameworks that could easily be adopted in the sunshine state, backed up by aggressive legal measures and incentivizations that would further prevent develo...

Inside the high-strung world of McMansion-moving

2019-07-25T13:35:00-04:00

More than 8,000 structures are moved each year, due to development, environmental hazards and historic preservation, according to Tammie DeVooght Blaney, executive director of the International Association of Structural Movers. Industry leaders estimate that high-end, single-family homes at 4,000 square feet or greater account for about only a dozen of these moves annually.

Oceans are rising, hillsides are collapsing, and low-lying neighborhoods are flooding, so what are rich people doing? Relocating, of course.

The Wall Street Journal takes a look at the logistically complex world of McMansion-moving, profiling a series of contractors and building movers who reposition giant homes for a living.

The reasons why homeowners decide to move their homes varies, but one thing is for sure: It's not cheap. “The more logistical issues involved in the move, the greater the costs, the more you need to prove the value of the house,” John Clegg, president of the Texas Association of Structural Movers, told The Wall Street Journal, adding, “Ninety-five percent of people who reach out to us don’t do the move. It’s just too expensive.”

'Deep adaptation' in the face of planetary climate catastrophe

2018-10-02T18:36:00-04:00

In the language of climate change, “adaptation” refers to ways to blunt the immediate effects of extreme weather, such as building seawalls, conserving drinking water, updating building codes, and helping more people get disaster insurance. [...] But some researchers are going further, calling for what some call the “deep adaptation agenda.”

Bloomberg's Climate & Environment Reporter, Christopher Flavelle, lays out a range of climate change projections—from the general consensus to the more pessimistic—and how an array of 'deep adaptation' measures could help to mitigate the damage. "Rather than simply asking people to water their lawns less often [...]," Flavelle writes, "governments need to consider large-scale, decades-long infrastructure projects, such as transporting water to increasingly arid regions and moving cities away from the ocean."

The AIA releases a revamped 'Disaster Assistance Handbook'

2017-04-06T13:07:00-04:00

The AIA has released a revamped version of its Disaster Assistance Handbook, which they claim is “significantly enhanced” and “will serve as a go-to resource for architects, built environments professionals, municipal government officials and emergency managers involved in disaster mitigation, preparation, response, and recovery.” Developed by a national team of AIA members and staff, alongside contributions from industry experts and government officials, the Handbook is oriented towards utilizing architects’ existing skill set to address different phases of a disaster.

“As the frequency, severity and costs of natural and manmade hazards continue to impact the built environment, the unique skillsets that architects bring to all phases of emergency management are more critical than ever, “ states AIA’s embattled Chief Executive Officer Robert Ivy, FAIA. “The new Handbook shows architects everywhere how they can work with local governments to prepare for and respond to disasters, and h...

The New York Times compiles a glossary of climate change-adaptive building strategies

2017-04-05T12:46:00-04:00

Communities across the country are confronting the mounting evidence of climate change and developing means of fortifying buildings and infrastructure against rising sea levels and ever-more-intense storms, even as the Trump administration reverses policies premised on climate change. “We’re not spending money on that anymore,” Mick Mulvaney, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, told reporters in Washington recently. “We consider that to be a waste of your money.”

"People who live, work or build in flood plains like West Chelsea and elsewhere say they cannot be so dismissive. They are spending money."

The New York Times has compiled case studies as well as an associated glossary of steps taken in New York City and its environs to help shore up the built environment against the encroachment of high waters, winds, and heavy rains. For example, the glossary features technical terms like a "500-year flood plain", or an area with a 0.2 percent chance of flooding any given year, as well as strategies, like "dry flood-proofing", or the use of impermeable materials and barriers to keep buildings dry.

Check it out this useful glossary here.

Alaskan village voting on whether to relocate because of sea level rise

2016-08-17T13:35:00-04:00

The residents of the northern Alaskan village of Shishmaref are currently voting to decide whether or not to relocate their village. As global warming brings up temperatures, the sea ice that once protected the village has begun to melt. Now the town, which is built on a barrier island in the Chukchi sea, faces inundation.

The village, with its 650 residents, mostly members of the Inupiat Inuit tribe, would be the first in the United States to relocate because of global warming-induced sea level rise. The effects of climate change on the island are considered among the most dramatic in the world. Already, the village has lost 2,500 to 3,500 feet of land to coastal erosion and the entire island could be gone within the next couple decades.

While barricades have been erected to protect the village, their effect has been minimal. The town is built on permafrost, which is melting and causing the shore to become even more vulnerable to crashing waves.

If the vote goes through, the cost of...

America's first "climate refugees" head for higher ground

2016-05-03T13:33:00-04:00

In January, the Department of Housing and Urban Development announced grants totaling $1 billion in 13 states to help communities adapt to climate change, by building stronger levees, dams and drainage systems. One of those grants, $48 million for Isle de Jean Charles, is something new: the first allocation of federal tax dollars to move an entire community struggling with the impacts of climate change.

"The divisions the effort has exposed and the logistical and moral dilemmas it has presented point up in microcosm the massive problems the world could face in the coming decades as it confronts a new category of displaced people who have become known as climate refugees."

Precisely determining who qualifies as a "climate refugee" is a notoriously difficult challenge. While the UN Refugee Agency estimates 22 million people were displaced by "disasters brought on by natural hazard events," evidence linking, for example, the civil war raging in Syria and Iraq with a prolonged drought would up that number.

In short, it's difficult to clearly isolate environmental factors, which tend to happen on large temporal and geographic scales, from sociopolitical causes of mass displacement, which are often more visible.

In any case, while a sizable chunk of the American government still doesn't believe in anthropogenic climate change, its citizens are already being displaced because of its effects....

Madrid is about to get a lot more green

2016-01-26T15:31:00-05:00

Nature is poised to reconquer Madrid. Faced with rising summer temperatures, Spain’s capital has announced plans, reported in today’s El Pais, to seam the city so thoroughly with new green patches that its face could be quite transformed. City parks will be expanded and restored, and 22 new urban gardens created. Vacant public land will be freed up to create community gardens while the banks of the city’s scrappy Manzanares River will be thickly planted with trees...

According to the report, other components of the initiative include funding and encouragement for green roofs and façades. Plants beds would be added to paved squares and ponds may be created to catch excess stormwater like in Copenhagen.

Madrid's location – perched high on a plateau that receives little rain – has always brought harsh winters and grueling summers. But according to a study made by Arup, rainfall could drop by 25% by the midcentury. When it does arrive, it's probably going to be in massive summer storms that can have more averse effects than positive.

If put into action, this plan could greatly improve the city today – and save it from tomorrow.

Related:

"King tides" give a glimpse of what the (near) future's rising seas will look like

2016-01-21T12:29:00-05:00

King tides—a type of perigean spring tide (there’s your science jargon)—occur when extra-high tides line up with some other meteorological anomalies. They’re not a huge deal: The water flowing over the seawall is part novelty, part nuisance. But these rare days hint at a new normal, when sea level rise will render current coastlines obsolete [...] On January 21 and 22, the king tide will bring San Francisco’s shoreline about a foot higher than average high tide.

Related:

Our cities must adapt to climate change and growing populations within a single generation, according to the head of Arup

2016-01-04T13:43:00-05:00

Cities around the world have only one generation to meet the twin challenges of climate change and a rapidly growing urban population, the head of a global engineering firm has warned. Gregory Hodkinson, chairman of the Arup group, said that with more than half the world’s population already living in cities, and the proportion set to rise to 70% by 2050, city leaders need to take urgent action.

Gregory Hodkinsin, the chairman of the engineering giant Arup Group, has warned that cities must adapt to climate change and booming population growth within the timespan of a single generation.

“If we don’t, in my view, we’re screwed: my children and my grandchildren and everybody else’s children," Hodkinsin told the Guardian. "We need to find a way to do this rapid urbanisation in a way that’s not going to kill us – and to do it once.”

Climate change and urban population growth are "twinned" challenges for a variety of reasons. As global temperatures rise, an increase in natural disasters and resource-driven conflict will likely drive displaced populations to urban centers, where shelter and access to basic necessities are more available. This is a pattern already emerging, for instance, in the mass migration of refugees from Syria and Iraq into Europe and elsewhere.

Cities currently house more than half of the world's population – and will most likely have to shelter up to 70% in t...

What the Paris Agreement means for architecture

2015-12-18T13:23:00-05:00

Last weekend in the outskirts of Paris, the rap of a green-tipped gavel announced an historically-unprecedented international climate agreement. A sense of accomplishment suffused the crowds gathered locally and the official statements broadcast globally – President Obama called the deal “a turning point for the world” – but it followed some real moments of tension, as years worth of planning for the COP21 nearly came undone in the face of disputed verbiage and policy.

Now, with the details announced, debate continues over the merits of the “Paris Agreement.” But first it should be noted that it won’t be official until at least 55 of the 195 pledge countries have ratified it, with the 55 ratifiers in turn accounting for at least 55% of global emissions. This pretty much necessitates ratification by the US government, whose Congress is currently run by the Republican party, a majority of whom refute mainstream scientific consensus and deny the existence of anthropogenic climate chang...

Can Silicon Valley save the Bay Area?

2015-11-17T19:09:00-05:00

The subject of a thousand think pieces and endless dinner table conversations, the considerable changes unleashed on the Bay Area by the tech industry over the past few decades are pretty undeniable. An influx of money – and its attendant culture – has remade San Francisco and the valley to its south largely in its own image, and has touched just about every other city in the Bay in some way.

But even bigger changes for the Bay Area are on the horizon, as is made clear in a new "interactive documentary" entitled The Water at Bay. Comprising a map, videos, and text, the website highlights the risks posed to region by rising sea levels, and waCs created in part by a coalition of Silicon Valley business leaders.

Can the same forces blamed for ruining the Bay Area now come to its rescue?

In order to educate local people about the dangers and challenges posed by rising sea levels, the Silicon Valley Leadership Group teamed up with the Bay Area Council and Save the Bay under the banner Our B...

Rebuild by Design Wins Innovation Award

2015-06-09T13:37:00-04:00

Each year, the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS) bestows its Walter Gellhorn Innovation Award to a federal agency with the best model practice that can be adopted government-wide. Today, ACUS announced that the 2015 Walter Gellhorn Innovation Award is being presented to U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Rebuild by Design Competition.

There's something of a mise-en-abyme quality to a competition winning an award, but it's a good occasion to remember the Rebuild by Design was, after all, not quite your regular competition. Organized in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy and funded primarily by the US Department of Housing and Development and the Rockefeller Foundation, the competition gathered some of the brightest names in architecture and the six winning proposals will actually be implemented.

Harriet Tregoning, HUD's Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Community Planning and Development, states, "We're absolutely thrilled to receive this recognition on behalf of the many partners who came together to think of new ways to consider the challenge of how we prepare for natural disasters."

Take a look at winning projects here.

The Pragmatics of Adaptating to Sea Level Rise: The Next Wave @ UCLA

2015-03-09T15:49:00-04:00

Beneath the vertiginous LED-strip lighting of Michael Maltzan's Billy Wilder Theater, a diverse audience gathered last Tuesday for a talk entitled "The Next Wave: Urban Adaptations for Rising Sea Levels." Co-presented by the Hammer Museum and UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, the event brought together coastal geomorphologist Jeremy Lowe and civil engineer Peter Wijsman in a conversation moderated by Kristina Hill, a UC Berkeley Professor of Landscape Architecture. The talk was part of an on-going lecture series on "the most pressing issues surrounding the current and future state of water."

Hill began the evening's panel with a brief introduction to the unfolding realities of sea level rise, as well as some of the efforts underway to mitigate its impact. Pointing to an image of the San Francisco's Embarcadero embattled by high tides, Hill discussed the urgency of our particular temporal moment: we are in the last slow period of sea level rise that the Earth wil...

Relocation or Adaptation: Copenhagen Braces for Climate Change

2015-01-26T12:51:00-05:00

Should a storm, flood or rising sea levels hit the Danish capital again, the bucolic mini-parks will turn into water basins, the hills essentially functioning as the sides of a bowl. Thanks to a new pipe system, the squares will even be able to collect water from surrounding buildings’ roofs. Surrounding streets will, for their part, be turned into “cloudburst boulevards.”

Relocation or Adaptation: Is a 2-Degree Limit for Global Warming Not Enough?

2014-12-15T18:35:00-05:00

...As a practical matter, limiting global warming to no more than 2C seemed like the most ambitious target that could possibly be achieved, since it would require virtually ending fossil fuel emissions within 30 to 40 years... Yet even as the 2C target has become a touchstone for the climate talks, scientific theory and real-world observations have begun to raise serious questions about whether the target is stringent enough."

As is documented in the article, the recent climate talks in Lima ended with an agreement to try to limit the long-term warming of the planet to below 2 degree celsius above the global average temperature at the start of the Industrial Revolution. This limit has been central to talks aimed at mitigating global warming, but, as the author notes, may not be enough. Already, the disastrous and damaging effects of global warming are felt worldwide. Moreover, scientists are realizing they had underestimated the potential rapidity of sea level rise from the melting glaciers of Greenland and Antarctica.

To put this in perspective, in order to remain below the 2 degree threshold, the building sector alone must steadily transition to carbon neutrality by 2030, a radical change in the way architecture and construction currently operate. According to the project Architecture 2030, whose name alone shows the centrality of the 2 degree limit, this could feasibly be accomplished if:

"All new build...

Relocation or Adaptation: From Sprawl to Archipelago

2014-12-08T16:05:00-05:00

1. By current estimates, if the polar ice caps melt, sea levels around the world will rise by between 80 and 100m. 2. Many cities (and, by default, around 70 per cent of the world's population) border on a body of water of some kind. According to 2010 government figures, 39 per cent of US population live on a coast. Half live within 50 miles of the ocean.

Based on worst-case scenarios for sea-level rise, cartographer Jeremy Linn imagined the future of three of America's major Western cities. He used topographic information to speculate on what an 80m – ≈262 ft – rise would look like as well as coming up with new names for this new geography. While such an increase in sea levels won't occur in our lifetime, our grandchildren could one day live in cities like this (if drastic food shortages, violent conflict, drug-adapted 'superbugs,' drought, and extreme weather don't get them first...). Such a rise in sea level would require every ice sheet on the planet to melt.

In Linn's imaginings, Portland (pictured above) has become a veritable archipelago of islands dominated by the spine of what-is-now Northwest Portland.

Likewise, much of contemporary Seattle will be replaced by a network of waterways. Only the city's hills would remains as isolated islands.

Los Angeles-of-the-future is almost entirely inundated. To get from Baldwin Island (Hil...

Relocation or Adaptation: São Paulo Nears Collapse as Drought Continues

2014-10-29T20:12:00-04:00

South America's biggest and wealthiest city may run out of water by mid-November if it doesn't rain soon. São Paulo, a Brazilian megacity of 20 million people, is suffering its worst drought in at least 80 years, with key reservoirs that supply the city dried up after an unusually dry year.

One of the most important reservoirs in Brazil is the Cantareira watershed, which supplies around 45% of the city of São Paulo's water. Back in August, authorities warned that the city, which is the largest on the continent, could run out of water in 100 days if the waters dropped to 12%. Now, supplies are at a record 3.3% and creating shortages for over 30% of the city's 44 million residents. According to the Financial Times, residents in 70 other cities in the state of São Paulo have experienced water outages, some of which have gone on for days. Despite some minor efforts to curb usage – such as reducing water pressure by 75% at night –, Vicente Andreu, president of Brazil's Water Regulatory Agency, has stated that São Paulo should prepare for a "collapse like we've never seen before" in the next few weeks.

President Dilma Rousseff, who just won reelection, had used the drought as a major campaign issue. She claimed that Governor Geraldo Alckmin, whose a member of the opposition p...

Relocation or Adaptation: "We may have to migrate people out of California"

2014-07-31T20:55:00-04:00

Suffering in its third year of drought, more than 58 percent of the state is currently in "exceptional drought" stage [...] Exceptional drought, the most extreme category, indicates widespread crop and pasture losses and shortages of water in reservoirs, streams and wells [...] If the state continues on this path, there may have to be thoughts about moving people out, said Lynn Wilson, academic chair at Kaplan University and who serves on the climate change delegation in the United Nations.

Have an idea for how to address the drought with design? Submit your ideas to the Dry Futures competition!

Relocation or Adaptation: Construction on Steel Wall Along Jersey Shore Set to Begin

2014-07-21T18:10:00-04:00

Construction of a four-mile long steel wall going up along a stretch of the Jersey Shore ripped apart during Hurricane Sandy is expected to begin next month [...] The state Department of Environmental Protection awarded a $23.8 million contract to Springfield-based EIC Associates in May to build the steel wall that will stretch from Lyman Street in Mantoloking through Brick.

Relocation or Adaptation: Map Shows Potential Impact of Flooding on Metro Boston

2014-07-21T15:29:00-04:00

The map [...] based on a report by the Boston Harbor Association, shows the impact of 5-foot and 7.5-foot coastal floods in Metro Boston that could be caused by a number of things — a rising sea level, storm surges, astronomical high tides or other causes.

Typhoon Threatens Japan's Already Vulnerable Infrastructure

2014-07-08T17:29:00-04:00

As Okinawa and Kyushu prepare to take the brunt of what was until Monday categorized as a “super typhoon,” local infrastructure will be pushed to its limits, especially in Kyushu, where the area is saturated from heavy rains last week.

Typhoon Neoguri is the strongest typhoon of the 2014 season, thus far. As it barrels through the Ryukyu island chain and towards mainland Japan, the storm is already taking its toll. Reports claim 25 people have been injured, thousands are without electricity, and 540,000 have been ordered to evacuate to temporary shelters.

Japan is particularly vulnerable as it struggles to recover from the tsunami that led to the catastrophic Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor meltdown in 2011. While new national policies have temporarily shut down other nuclear facilities, apparently three are currently at risk from Typhoon Neoguri.

Scientists believe that hurricanes and typhoons will continue to increase in severity as global warming raises ocean temperatures. Maintaining aging infrastructure systems will become increasingly difficult in the next few decades, particularly for countries with extensive coastlines. And without them, providing adequate shelter and resources to temporary climate refuge...

Relocation or Adaptation: Kiribati buys land in Fiji

2014-07-02T13:23:00-04:00

Aiming to avoid a humanitarian crisis, Kiribati recently purchased land in Fiji — about 1,200 miles away — where its residents would be relocated in the event that sea-level rise drowns the Pacific island nation and displaces its population of just over 100,000 people [...] Contributing very little to the greenhouse gases that most scientists agree fuel climate change, Kiribati is among the least responsible for the present climate crisis.

As atmospheric CO2 levels near 402 ppm without any significant curtailing of industrial production by the major nations of the global economy, time is running out for many of the poorest and most vulnerable countries. The UN and other transnational bodies are beginning to seem like echo chambers for the leaders of island nations like Kiribati and the Marshall Islands. The sad irony of global warming is that it is countries least responsible for it that will bear the most burden.

Some architects are producing imaginative designs for adaptive structures. For example, LILYPAD is a project by Belgian architect Vincent Callebaut. Described as a "prototypical auto-sufficient amphibious city," the project would adapt to rising sea levels while serving as a shelter for climate refugees.

But let's be real: adaptive strategies are fundamentally out of the question for countries without the resources for expensive architectural projects – ie. the countries that need them the most. Efforts by n...

Relocation or Adaptation: Creating resilience against natural disaster

2014-06-23T15:34:00-04:00

U.S. disaster rebuilding has traditionally focused on merely replacing what has been lost. But a little-noticed federal design competition, Rebuild by Design, has done something different: engage communities to develop a more porous relationship between land and water that recognizes the dynamism of rising seas and more violent storms...

Relocation or Adaptation: Preparing for Global Warming

2014-06-19T13:11:00-04:00

"...just as planning for response to an industrial accident doesn’t make an industrial accident more likely, so too planning for relocations should not make them more likely... It is .... likely that the slow-onset effects of climate change will lead many to voluntarily migrate in anticipation that conditions will worsen. Those who are left behind – and who will need government assistance to relocate – thus may be particularly vulnerable."

The pressure to start preparing for inevitable relocations due to global warming and the resultant rise in sea levels is growing for many communities around the world. For some, the time for preparation is already running out and the time for action is now. In the United States, the first "climate refugees" are in the largely-native communities along Alaska's coastline. Many of the small island nations of Oceania are beginning to ask their neighbors for asylum preemptively. This will certainly present one of the most challenging realities facing architects in the future as the global refugee population begins to increase. An important strategy will be to learn from existing "refugee cities" such as Zaatari in Lebanon, currently the country's fourth largest city. Populated by people fleeing the violence in neighboring Syria, a current water shortage crisis proves that, today, nearly every situation is in some ways affected by environmental conditions.

For places without as drastic a d...