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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... View full entry
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. — NPR
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... View full entry
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... View full entry
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need to stop having the same conversation over and over again, a conversation laced with non-sequiturs and focused on outdated, ineffective solutions. — latimes.com
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. View full entry
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. — Bloomberg
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... View full entry
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... View full entry
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[.] — Los Angeles Times
More on Archinect:Checking in on Nepal, one year laterDeath toll climbs to 350 after powerful 7.8-magnitude earthquake hits EcuadorIn Los Angeles, landlords and tenants will share seismic retrofit costsShigeru Ban builds earthquake-proof homes in Nepal: "I'm encouraging people to copy my ideas. No... View full entry
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... View full entry
'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. — CNN
More on Archinect:The Hurricane Katrina Cottages: where are they now?Coating the LA reservoir in "shade balls" will save 300M gallons of waterHow the Cascadia earthquake threatens America's coastal NorthwestThe Pragmatics of Adaptating to Sea Level Rise: The Next Wave @ UCLAU.S. Department of HUD... View full entry
‘"It’s hard to think about ways to drain the swamp when alligators are biting your ass.’” — Placemakers.com
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... View full entry
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... — NY Times
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... View full entry
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...
— motherboard.vice.com
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... View full entry
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.
— bbc.co.uk
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. — green.blogs.nytimes.com
