Green ArchiTEXT

How Five Major Cities Are Boldly Tackling Climate Change

From rising sea levels to so-called heat islands, the challenges facing the world’s major cities as a result of climate change are daunting to say the least. But some municipal responses – especially those spearheaded by architects and designers – have been as creative as the problems are formidable. Think city parks turned reservoirs, urban forests on demand, even a redirected river. What follows are a few of the initiatives that five threatened yet ambitious metropolises have effected or are exploring to engender civic resilience, with designers leading the charge. READ MORE>>

via Azure Magazine

Architecture of Resilience: 'Designing Recovery' Winners Announced

By Matt Hickman

Photo: DMagnus/Flickr

A tornado-resilient Russian nesting doll of a home, a sleek — and rising sea level-safe — spin on the iconic shotgun shack, and an energy effecient dwelling-on-stilts have been named the three winners in the American Institute of Architects’ Designing Recovery residential design competition.

 

Launched this past summer by the AIA in partnership with the Make It Right Foundation, Architecture for Humanity, the St. Bernard Project, and Dow Building Solutions, Designing Recovery solicited architects to design affordable, buildable, and eco-friendly single-family dwellings that “aid in the rebuilding of sustainable and resilient communities.”

 

Each home design was required to be site-specific and geared to help residents living in three specific cities/regions deeply impacted by natural disasters — of both the hurricane and tornado variety — over the last several years: New York City, New Orleans, and Joplin, Mo. As the competition, a “design competition with real world impact on the lives of families who have been struck by natural disaster,” brief reads: “This competition is not only about replacing what was lost, but building back better.” READ MORE >>

via www.mnn.com

Landscapes of Resilience — Joplin, MO and Queens, NY: Exploring How Nature Can Influence, Strengthen Restoration in Times of Crisis

The television footage of the devastation of Joplin, Missouri — struck by an EF5 multiple-vortex tornado in May 2011 — reminded him of old black and white photos of World War I battlefields scarred deep with trenches. Not just the devastation to the people, but the way the high winds had actually stripped away much of the bark from the trees, laying them bare.

“Those trees were first an indicator of the injury to the ecosystem…and later would become a springboard image as to how the community would respond,” said Keith Tidball, PhD, an Extension Associate and Associate Director of the Cornell University Civic Ecology Lab in upstate New York.

In time that imagery would also help springboard Tidball to the Landscapes of Resilience project in Joplin and Queens, N.Y., which suffered greatly from Hurricane Sandy. READ MORE >>

via naturesacred.org

The Geometry of Resilience | Metropolis POV

By Michael Mehaffy and Nikos Salingaros

We have previously described four key characteristics of resilient structures in natural systems: diversity; web-network structure; distribution across a range of scales; and the capacity to self-adapt and “self-organize.” We showed how these features allow a structure to adapt to shocks and changes that might otherwise prove catastrophic.

We also argued that a more resilient future for humankind demands new technologies incorporating precisely these characteristics. As a result, environmental design, especially, is set to change dramatically.

But such desirable characteristics do not exist as abstract entities. Rather, they are embodied in the physical geometries of our world — the relationship between elements in space. As we will discuss here, these geometries typically arise from the processes that produce resilience, but in turn they go on to create — or to destroy — the capacity for resilience in their own right. So if we want a more resilient future, we first need to understand these geometries, and the technological and economic processes that produce them. READ MORE >>

via www.metropolismag.com

City Building, One Block At A Time: Why neighborhood renewal works (VIDEO)

Nice session from last fall's CityAge conference in Kansas City: featuring Jean Quan, Mayor of Oakland, BNIM's Bob Berkebile, Tim Duggan of Make it Right Foundation, and Simon O'Byrne, Vice President, Urban Planning, Stantec.

From Katrina to Sandy, This Is How Urban Revival Gets Done

By Rick Cohen

For those of us who still claim an allegiance to the nonprofit sector qua nonprofits as opposed to alternative visions of nonprofits as sort of second-rate for-profit wannabes or as arms and outposts of government, Joe Nocera’s op-ed in the New York Times is so welcome. Relying on a clearly generative conversation he had with urban redevelopment author Roberta Gratz, Nocera looks at the rebuilding of the Ninth Ward of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and, after the more recent Superstorm Sandy devastation, the Rockaways in the New York City borough of Queens.

Nocera reminds us that after Katrina, city leaders—and we should note, though he didn’t, foundation leaders who participated in their planning efforts—concluded that the Lower Ninth Ward should not be rebuilt, but set aside as green space. Given that much of New Orleans is below sea level, that conclusion could have been slapped down on much of the city, but it was aimed at the very low income Lower Ninth Ward. Katrina had accomplished the desired urban redevelopment—or “urban renewal by removal”—that some politicians had long wanted.

The green space plan didn’t go through, but, as Gratz told Nocera, the big money for redevelopment went to the tourist areas, not neighborhoods like the Lower Ninth. Nonetheless, people trickled back into the neighborhood, despite admonitions that the neighborhood should never be rebuilt. People worked together through neighborhood organizations and other nonprofits, such as Brad Pitt’s Make It Right, to restore the neighborhood in environmentally sensitive and pragmatic ways. Government is now responding to the Lower Ninth, not because it was in the grand plan, but because the presence and activism of neighborhood residents are making it impossible not to do so. READ MORE >>

via www.nonprofitquarterly.org

"I'm a City Changer" Campaign Explores Inspirational Ideas to Improve Life in Cities

UN Habitat's worldwide I'm a City Changer campaign works to create awareness among citizens on urban issues to achieve better cities: 159 inspirational ideas and counting - from Nairobi to São Paulo, Geneva to Cincinnati.

Inhabitat: Gensler's Irwin Miller on Sustainable Architecture and Opportunity Green

By Evelyn Lee

INHABITAT: We’ve covered several Gensler projects in the past on Inhabitat. As one of the largest architectural and design firms in the world, how does Gensler prioritize sustainability not only in their buildings but in the everyday operations of your offices.

Irwin: We think of great design as having four equally important parts: ethical practice, experiential design, thoughtful impact, and excellent delivery. Included in ethical practice is sustainability and the idea that you can’t create great design without it. This translates into our everyday office operations in many big and small ways. The really exciting sustainable operations are yet to come in our new office! We’ve worked closely with Glumac to get our energy usage as low as possible through the use of natural light, task lighting, and daylight sensors for overhead lights. We are using chilled beam technology for cooling instead of conventional forced air. All of our plumbing fixtures are very low-flow, and we’ve built showers to encourage the use of alternative transportation, and we offer a great rideshare incentive program. In fact, a key factor in our ultimate decision to relocate to downtown Los Angeles was the proximity of our new office a broader range of public transportation options. We also have recycling, green cleaning products, and paper with high recycled content. All of the vendors that visit our office are asked to share what’s green about their product, and we host weekly presentations that always include sustainable building materials, products, or technology. I could go on, but the bottom line is that we definitely practice what we preach when it comes to sustainability. READ FULL INTERVIEW>>

via inhabitat.com

Tipping towards sustainability: Science calls for ecologically literate innovation

Interesting website and research from the Stockholm Resilience Centre at Stockholm University:

It is a fascinating paradox that the same innovative capacity that has put us in the current environmental predicament is actually what can be used to push us out of it.

"It is time to use this capacity and introduce innovations that are sensitive to the fundamental bonds between social and ecological system."

This is the gist of the third and final scientific paper produced for the recently held Stockholm Nobel Laureate Symposium on Global Sustainability.

The paper, which follows from two related ones on reconnecting to the Biosphere and how humans must go from hunter-gatherers to planetary stewards, was recently published in the scientific journal AMBIO. READ MORE >>

via www.stockholmresilience.org