Archinect - News

Department of Defense plans climate adaptation strategies for military bases

2019-10-28T12:25:00-04:00

The United States Department of Defense (DoD) is studying the ways in which it can update its departmental building standards in order to make military bases and other sites less vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, including the increased frequency and intensity of natural disasters.

During a recent joint hearing of the two House Armed Services Committee subcommittees, Robert H. McMahon, assistant secretary of defense for sustainment, told lawmakers, "As we look out over the last decade or two decades, the challenges and threats we face within our installations have grown dramatically."

McMahon added, "It's climate. It's the challenge we also face with regards to natural disasters, whether that be earthquakes, whether that be forest fires, whether that be deforestation or drought."

The efforts to guard against climate change-induced disasters by the military come as DoD officials work to meet a slew of "emerging threats" to military installations, including minimizing the...

How insurance companies are preparing for increasingly frequent and costly disasters

2019-04-03T14:04:00-04:00

The past two years have been particularly costly for insurance companies that are on the hook for billions of dollars in damage done by hurricanes, wildfires, floods and other disasters. As these disasters become more frequent and expensive, in part because of climate change, insurers are investing more in this research facility that studies how to protect homes and businesses from destructive wind, water and embers.

Opened in 2010, the IBHS Research Center offers full-scale testing of buildings and their materials under the harshest conditions. There, researchers are able to simulate Category 3 hurricanes and replicate wildfires in order to find best practices for mitigating the losses incurred by various natural disasters. Important findings have included a deeper understanding in how to reduce the risks posed by flying embers, and how shutting interior doors can protect homes from avoidable hurricane damage.

Funded by insurance companies, the organization's CEO Roy Wright tells NPR of the increased support for their research. "We've hit an inflection point where we're seeing more events impact more Americans," Wright says. "Our members have increased their investment and said, 'We want more researchers here. We want to see more activity playing out here.' We are collectively responding to this changing world that we're in."

Last year, the Camp a...

The Santa Barbara Independent undertakes a mapping initiative to assess impacted areas after Montecito mudslides

2018-01-18T14:51:00-05:00

Last week, deadly mudslides and flooding devastated the Santa Barbara area, destroying at least 100 single-family homes, and damaging another 300 residences, according to the LA Times. While three Montecito residents unfortunately remain missing, government crews have also begun the long and arduous task of clearing debris and getting the region back up and running.

In an effort to help the recovery, the Santa Barbara Independent is undertaking a house-by-house damage assessment in order to provide a street-by-street look at which homes have been damaged, destroyed, or spared. All information gathered is and will continue to be added to this interactive map.

Are California homes burning from natural disasters or poor planning?

2017-12-11T19:08:00-05:00

The fires raging in Los Angeles County and Ventura are an urgent signal that we need to start asking the hard questions — about the true cost of expanding the local tax base with new residences in high fire hazard zones. We need to stop having the same conversation over and over again, a conversation laced with non-sequiturs and focused on outdated, ineffective solutions.

The fires consuming California homes are located in wildland areas, where developers continue to spread cities further. Planning agencies should be the first line of action, not firefighters.

Trump Administration terminates Community Resilience Panel that prepared cities for climate shock

2017-12-05T13:31:00-05:00

The Community Resilience Panel for Buildings and Infrastructure Systems was created by the Obama administration in 2015 within the Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology. Its chairman, Jesse Keenan, told members at a meeting Monday that its charter was being dissolved and that meeting would be its last.

The Trump administration is pulling the plug on the Community Resilience Panel for Buildings and Infrastructure Systems—a group created in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy that helped local officials prepare for extreme weather and other natural disasters. The multi-agency organization, comprised of representatives from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, among other federal departments, guided municipal governments and local groups to improve buildings, communications, energy systems and transportation in response to climate threats.

The two-year-old panel was the "federal government's primary external engagement for resilience in the built environment," said the panel's chairman Jesse Keenan. It is yet another federal climate-related body that has been canned by the current administration. Just back in August, the President disbanded a 15-person advisory committee that helped communicate scientific climate change findings to businesses ...

Trump revoked Obama's executive order on higher standards for flood protection two weeks before Hurricane Harvey

2017-08-28T14:10:00-04:00

Hurricane Harvey has been battering the Gulf Coast for days bringing in record floodwaters devastating much of southeast Texas. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has estimated that 30,000 people are in need of emergency shelter and more than 450,000 will need the help of federal aid for recovery after the devastation. The catastrophic flooding, which officials are calling the worst in the state's history, has already lead to at least five deaths and dozens of injuries.

Two weeks before the storm, President Trump revoked an executive order signed by former president Barack Obama in 2015 that aimed to make infrastructure more resilient to the effects of climate change. The Obama-era regulation meant that roads, building and other infrastructure projects needed to be built to withstand the effects of climate change such as stronger downpours, rising sea levels, and flooding. However, as part of Trump's executive order signed several weeks ago, he rolled back the Federal Flood Ri...

CA seeks to allocate $10 million in state funds to new earthquake early warning system

2016-05-16T18:34:00-04:00

In a major reversal, Gov. Jerry Brown is seeking state funds for a fledgling earthquake early warning system for California, which would allow for a limited rollout of alerts by 2018...Though the governor’s proposed funding is a big step for the system, it does not come with ongoing funds to operate it. An earthquake early warning system for California alone will cost about $23 million to build and $12 million annually to operate[.]

Prepare your emergency survival kit with inspiration from some of the Dry Futures competition prize packages

2015-08-27T16:40:00-04:00

Whether you're venturing out into nature doing long-term research for a project or you're preparing for the next natural disaster that may strike your city, it's always a good idea to have a survival kit ready if things go awry and an emergency arises. If you haven't prepared a kit and need some starter suggestions on what to pack, Archinect hand-picked a selection of survival products that were kindly provided by a group of reputable brands for our Dry Futures design competition. The top three prizes in each category will include these custom survival kits.

Naturally, staying as healthy as possible is crucial in any survival situation. Devoted to creating durable everyday products equipped with life-saving capabilities, Life Gear's "Wings of Life" and "Grab and Go" Survival Packs include lightweight water-resistant backpacks to carry their accompanying essentials, including: 3-day supply of food and water for one person, poncho/thermal blanket, tarp, personal hygiene and first-aid...

When the next disaster strikes, how resilient would future-proof cities in the U.S. be?

2015-08-14T14:45:00-04:00

'There is no one size fits all approach — every region is completely different...' Hurricane Sandy underlined the urgency by ruthlessly exposing New York's structural weaknesses...California also suffered as historic droughts settled in, and the 2014 wave of winter storms terrorized the North, emphasizing that extreme conditions were here to stay and could strike anywhere. This bought the U.S. into line with the global situation.

The Hurricane Katrina Cottages: where are they now?

2015-08-13T14:49:00-04:00

‘"It’s hard to think about ways to drain the swamp when alligators are biting your ass.’”

Immediately after a natural disaster, most residents want to get things back to normal, even if that "normal" wasn't particularly ideal. The story of the Katrina Cottages, a series of 400 to 800 square foot residences that would provide temporary relief housing in Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina and also act as "seed" housing for safer, long-term neighborhoods, is a nuanced and occasionally frustrating look into the political dimensions of recovery.

For more on disaster and recovery efforts:

Another powerful earthquake has hit Nepal

2015-05-12T14:35:00-04:00

A powerful earthquake shook eastern Nepal on Tuesday, shattering the halting recovery from the earthquake that hit the country less than three weeks ago, and causing loose hillsides and cracked buildings to give way and collapse. By late afternoon, Nepal’s National Emergency Operation Center had reported 42 deaths and 1,117 injuries from Tuesday’s earthquake, which the United States Geological Survey assigned a preliminary magnitude of 7.3...

Nepal is still reeling from a devastating, magnitude-7.8 earthquake on April 25, which claimed upwards of 8,159 lives. According to the New York Times report, Tuesday's earthquake happened just as a semblance of normality was returning to the streets of Kathmandu and its environs. Landslides have further isolated already-damaged rural villages in the mountainous region. A large percentage of the country's infrastructure is critically damaged, while international relief has been short in coming.

Since the April 25th earthquake, Archinect has been compiling architectural responses and reactions to the on-going disaster.

Archinect's Julia Ingalls compiled a feature, How Architects Can Help Nepal (And Learn From Past Disastrous Mistakes/Successes). Ingalls notes the three phases of a natural disaster – emergency, relief, and recovery – and provides useful ideas for how architects can help in each stage. She notes, "In the emergency phase, architects can help primarily by fundraising or d...

Temple University Physicist proposes three 1,000-foot walls to tornado-proof Midwest

2014-06-30T20:31:00-04:00

In a paper he recently published in the International Journal of Modern Physics B, Tao points to two regions of China... that have a similar geographic location as the Midwest—but far fewer tornadoes. The difference, he says, is that China's plains are surrounded by three east-west mountain ranges, which slow down passing winds enough to prevent tornados from forming. Tao, then, is essentially suggesting we build mountain range-sized walls across Tornado Alley...

diji-lab investigates the future of flood-damage control with BIM and digital design

2014-02-24T18:47:00-05:00

With strange weather patterns becoming the norm, who knows when or where the next natural disaster will strike and affect local neighborhoods. And architects are trying to work with nature to find effective and economic solutions in disaster rebuilding. Some of those architects include Ida D.K. Tam of the diji-lab — a Building Information Modeling (BIM) and digital design consultancy in New York City — in collaboration with Runsheng Lin and Julia Pascutto.

The team investigates the possibilities to integrate BIM, digital simulation technology, and natural systems in an effort to mediate floodwater damage in the context of New Orleans.

Keep reading for a more detailed summary of the project:

"Owing to the inseparable links between nature, performance and efficiency, it is time that digital simulation, building information modeling technologies and natural systems play larger roles in design and construction.

Reversed tributary housing system is an ecological flood water management orient...

The Alaskan village set to disappear under water in a decade

2013-07-30T12:18:00-04:00

Almost no one in America has heard of the Alaskan village of Kivalina. It clings to a narrow spit of sand on the edge of the Bering Sea, far too small to feature on maps of Alaska, never mind the United States. Which is perhaps just as well, because within a decade Kivalina is likely to be under water. Gone, forever. Remembered - if at all - as the birthplace of America's first climate change refugees.

Will Biomimcry Offer a Way Forward, Post-Sandy?

2013-01-04T18:25:00-05:00

As neighborhoods devastated by Hurricane Sandy begin drafting plans for reconstruction, some progressive architects and urban planners have been pointing out that the emerging science of biomimicry offers a way forward. The notion is that the next generation of waterfront designs could draw inspiration from the intricate ways that plants and animals have adapted to their situations over hundreds of millions of years.

Architecture for Humanity Launches Philippines Floods Response Program for Long-Term Disaster Mitigation

2012-08-09T18:01:00-04:00

On August 6, the Tropical Storm Haikui brought two days of heavy rains that caused massive flooding and landslides throughout the capital city of Manila in the Philippines. Over 800,000 people were evacuated from their homes and 250,000 people have moved into emergency shelters. [...] Architecture for Humanity is committed to helping communities in Manila rebuild and prevent future disasters. We need your help.

QUESTIONING CATASTROPHE

2012-01-23T20:24:00-05:00

Human beings and their communities are fragile because they are sustainable only within a narrow range of conditions and possibilities. It is the main task of architecture to maintain this range or to create it where it has not existed before. To some extent it is also architecture’s responsibility to expand this range when people require it not only for survival but also to flourish within the demands of change brought on by catastrophic events such as earthquake and tsunami.