Resilience Science for Practitioners for Buildings & Cities How We Design & Build Our Homes, Buildings, Cities Is A Form of Adaptation & Is Subject To Natural Selection
Resilience Science for Practitioners for
Buildings & Cities
How We Design & Build Our Homes, Buildings, Cities Is A
Form of Adaptation & Is Subject To Natural Selection
Humanity As Geologic ForcePredominant driver of Change Globally
Crutzen, P. Nature 415, 23 2002Steffen, W., Crutzen, P., McNeil, J. 2007
Ellis & Ramencutty 2008
Intensifying Soil ErosionAltering Atmospheric CompositionAcidifying OceansReshaping Earth’s SurfaceSpecies Diversity & Distribution (Changing Future Fossil Record, Altering Flowering Dates, Forcing Novel Migration Patterns)
Crutzen, Steffen, et. al; Rockstom
The Great Acceleration of ConsumptionGlobal Change and the Earth System: A Planet Under Pressure, Steffen, Sanderson, Tyson et. al 2005
Stage 1 The Industrial Era 1750 - 1945
From biological limits to industrial limits. From current, slower to ancient, faster forms of energy.
Stage 2 The Great Acceleration 1945 - 2015
Massive Increase in Consumption
Stage 3 Undetermined - Point of Inflection
Next few generations hold greater influence on future generations than ever before
Image: Will Steffen
6th Great ExtinctionDeath of Birth EO Wilson
Consequence of Humanity As Force Of Nature
Loss Of FUNCTIONALAdaptive Solutions
ilovemountains.org; Rockstrom 2009
Ecosystem Health &
Human Well Being
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
Past 50 years: humans altered living systems faster & more extensively than any comparable period
Changes created short term benefits for some but caused disintegrating ecology, risk of nonlinear change
Next 50 years: pace of degradation of ecosystem services accelerating
No longer assume ecosystems can sustain future generations
www.maweb.org
Managing Unknowable & Unprecedented Change
Threshold Level in controlling variable changes SES identity
Image: Reuters
Wilson’s Law EO Wilson
If you save the living environment, you will automatically save the physical environment. But if you only try to save the physical environment, you will lose them both.
This is a defensible law.
We should stop thinking about the physical environment (rocks, minerals, energy, temperature)...because the physical environment that we live off of is created by the living environment.
We are a biological species in a biological world and we live in just a very very thin layer of other organisms, and we better figure out how to keep them healthy, flourishing and diverse for our own good.
EO Wilson
Resilience
Capacity To Manage Change & Continue to Develop Preserve Key Functions, Structure & Feedbacks
(Identity)
Source: E. Sanderson, Mannahatta
Ecological Resilience
Preserving EXISTENCE Of Function
Engineering Resilience
Preserving EFFICIENCY Of Function
PanarchyLiving Systems of
Nature and Humans in
Dynamic Non-equilibrium,
Interconnected through varying scales of Time,
Place and Pace in Perpetual
Adaptive Cycles
Image: Urban Green Resiliency Report
Specified Resilience Of What, To What?
Resilience of Specific Parts of a System to Known Disturbances
If You Don’t Measure Variables, It Is Difficult
To Manage Them. But If All You Manage Is What
You Measure, You Are Optimizing In Isolation &
Creating Vulnerability Elsewhere In The System
General Resilience
Adaptability
Capacity to manage change/disturbances, including novel or unforeseen ones
Factors
DiversityReserves (Capital)RedundancyModularity/ConnectivityTightness of Feedbacks
Image: Emily Harrington
RememberA cross-scale structural
force that renews by drawing from adaptive
memory, feedback, experience stored in
deeper scales.CS Holling 2001
Transformative In Times of Change
Resilience arises when individuals, cities can
access a diversity of opportunity at times of
crisis, change or transformation.
It is as if this connection draws on accumulated
wisdom and experience.
CS Holling.
Opportunities/constraints for renewal
strongly influenced by larger, slower scale
RememberingTime as Tool for Design“Even the memory of what was lost was lost.” J. Jacobs
CS Holling 2001
DeconstructionSyracuseCoE Proof of ConceptEcosystem Scale BiomimicryCarbon SequestrationTransformability, Economic & Equitable Development
86% Diverted from Landfills & Incinerators
60% of material flows in US economy
US Geologic Survey
If 2% of buildings deconstructed & 25% wood salvaged, could supply 25% of lumber
market for 50 yearsHorne-Brine, Faulk 1999.
Functional DiversityFunctional Groups
Present In A Living System
Diversity of functional groups enhances system performance
Response Diversity
Response Types Present In Functional Groups
Image: Dal Pos Architects
Diversity As ToolPeterson et. al 1998Elmqvist 2003Berkes 2003Folke 2005Ostrom 2005
Resilience is generated by diverse but overlapping
function both within a scale and by redundant species that operate at
different scales, thereby reinforcing function across
different scales of time, place, pace.
Redundancy enhancing response diversity
increases resilience
Courtesy: John Todd Ecological Design
Image: MotherPlants, Ltd.; SUNY ESF GatewayEcosystem Scale Mimicry
Ecosystem Scale BiomimicryBuild as a Keystone Species
Structurally & Functionally Modifying Living World, Creating Abundance For Ourselves & Diversity of Species
"For extensive stream remodeling that creates new wetlands, waterfowl habitat, fish spawning pools, and settling ponds for sediment, nothing matches the work of beavers." Baskin 1997:95
Looking To Living System In Which Your Project Is Immersed For Functional, Structural, Adaptive Models & Strategies To Build Adaptive Capacity & Opportunity in Crises
Ecosystem FunctionAs Land Use Law, Planning and Codes
Hemlock Swamp / Marsh TransitionSequester 1,653 lbs CO2/yr257 gallons absorbed per day2,900 kwh daily solar energy
Dr. Myrna Hall, SUNY ESF
Extant EcologyChanges in Hydrology, Urban Soils, Invasives, Human Laws, Values
Dr. Eric SandersonMannahatta2409.org
Resilience ScienceStockholm Resilience Center www.stockholmresilience.orgEcology & Society Journal- Free, open source
www.ecologyandsociety.orgResilience Alliance - www.resalliance.org
Practioner’s WorkbookScientists Workbook
Resilience Thinking, Walker & Salt (2006)
Resilience Practice, Walker & Salt (2013)
Climate/Disaster ResilienceUS Global Change Program www.globalchange.govNYC Resilience InitiativeUrban Green ResiliencyUSGBC Climate ResiliencyRockefeller Resilience Initiative (100 Cities, etc.)NYSERDA ClimAID Study (NYS)
Building Scale ResilienceResilient Design Institute - www.resilientdesign.orgBuildingGreen, Inc. - www.buildinggreen.com