Superstorm Sandy inundated Lower Manhattan, causing billions in property and infrastructure damage. To protect against future flooding, storm surges, and sea level rise, landscape architects are developing an innovative mix of green and grey solutions along the southern coast of Manhattan.
These are not nature-based solutions but forms of armor. And designers are showing how this armature can be woven into the public realm, creating new kinds of infrastructure. Smart design is resulting in retractable gates and walls, landscaped berms, and raised platforms. No concrete walls separating communities from each other or the waterfront here.
It's that time of year again: students and their families are busy preparing for the start of school, while some of us are gearing up to step in front of the classroom. While preparing to teach an intro course on climate, I'm reminded of why we use the term climate change and not global warming.
Yes, the Earth is warming from a thickening layer of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere caused by us. But climate changes range from sea level rise to increasing storms, floods, fires, and drought, which are all negatively impacting biodiversity as well. So, not just warming. Recent storms that battered the eastern U.S. coast and Bermuda remind us of this difference. While some communities face extreme heat, others brace for storms and rising waters, and many face multiple impacts.
As we reflect on the tumultuous events of 2023, it becomes evident that the challenges posed by changing environmental conditions have left an indelible mark on communities worldwide. In response, architects and urban planners have set out, searching for the ways in which their actions can help create safer environments for communities worldwide, responding with both fast-to-deploy emergency architectures and long-term strategies to build resilience and mitigate risks.
Beyond merely responding to events like the devastating earthquakes in Turkey, Syria, and Morocco, or the widespread flooding in Libya or Pakistan, professionals are attempting to take proactive approaches, developing strategies that extend from predictive modeling to the application of re-naturalizing techniques or the ongoing research into the physics of safer and resilient structures.
On November 30, 2023, the UN COP28 climate summit begins in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates. The name stands for the Conference of the Parties under the UNFCCC, and symbolizes the annual meeting of world governments for the purpose of establishing strategies to limit the extent of climate change and its adverse effects. Last year’s summit concluded with several important measures, including the promise of a global fund aimed at providing financial aid to developing countries affected by climate disasters.
The main purpose of COP is to reinforce the commitments of the Paris Agreement, signed in 2015, which strives to keep the global temperature rise under 1.5C degrees. As the construction industry accounts for 39% of global emissions, architecture plays an important role in helping to lower our carbon footprint, making COP28 a crucial event for architects.
Pono Colony - August 2022. Image Courtesy of Heritage Foundation of Pakistan
Following the extreme floods that affected Pakistan in 2022, architect Yasmeen Lari the Heritage Foundation of Pakistan pledged to help build one million resilient houses in the country. In 2022, 33 million people have been displaced, and an estimated 500,000 houses have been destroyed or severely damaged. In September 2022, Lari’s NGO launched a target program to start rebuilding and to help communities protect themselves against future disasters. The program is built on Lari’s expertise in working with the communities and employing vernacular and local building materials to achieve resilient and sustainable structures. According to the Heritage Foundation of Pakistan, one-third of the goal has already been reached.
Carlo Ratti Associati has revealed the design transformation of Turin’s historic waterfront in Italy. The project’s main aim is to address the current climate crisis and leverage architectural solutions to create spaces that can withstand the recurring floods of the Po River. Throughout the scheme, many architectural elements are kinetic, allowing them to rise above the water. “Floating Above the Floods” creates new solutions for urban climate adaptations and provides insights into universal strategies for urban waterways.
As the world grapples with the effects of climate change, natural disasters like flooding, and the spread of incontrollable wildfires are increasingly threatening cities and inhabitants. While architecture and urban planning cannot prevent these occurrences, they still possess strategies to minimize the damage associated with these events and help protect the citizens. Unfortunate events over the course of last year, like the earthquake that hit central Turkey and north-west Syria this February or the more recent earthquake in western Afghanistan, the flooding and dam failures in Libya, and the wildfires that devastated the city of Lahaina, Hawaii, demonstrate the urgency of implementing preventative and mitigation measures in addition to creating procedures for emergency intervention. This article explores the strategies and resources available to architects and urban planners to address these challenges in three types of natural disasters: flooding, wildfires, and earthquakes.
Within the span of a week, two natural disasters hit North African nations. On Monday, 11 September, just days after a major earthquake hit Morocco's High Atlas Mountains, Storm Daniel made landfall in Northwest Libya, leading to the collapse of two dams, which released torrents of mud and water into the country’s coastline, killing thousands and destroying large parts of the port city of Derna, as well as other cities and villages such as Benghazi, Bayda, and al-Marj. The scale of the disaster is still being assessed, with more than 10,000 residents still missing and thousands more displaced. Entire neighborhoods of Derna, a city traversed by the flooded Wadi Derna River, have been swept away.
Burning Man, the annual festival taking place in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, has opened on August 27th, with thousands of festivalgoers gathering to create the Black Rock City, a ‘temporary metropolis’ complete with numerous installations, artworks, and pavilions that celebrate “community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance.” This year, however, the festival experience has been different, as heavy rains inundated the desert and festival site, creating thick, ankle-deep mud. The roads to and from the festival have been closed as large vehicles risk remaining stuck in the mud. While some people have left the site by walking out, the majority of the 70,000 campers remain stranded, as reported by CNN.
The threat of climate change is looming before us. Sea level rise concerns over 410 million people at risk of losing their livelihoods. Coastal cities are choked with high-rise buildings and traffic-laden roads, consuming land insufficiently. Synthesizing these problems, architects across the world have proposed a potential answer - floating cities. A future of living on water seems like a radical shift from how people live, work, and play. Vernacular precedents prove otherwise, offering inspiration for what our cities could morph into. As world leaders discuss courses of action to tackle climate change at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt, ArchDaily dives into the concept of radical water-based settlements.
International office MVRDV has been selected by the Taiwan Ministry of Economic Affairs to design the Hoowave Water Factory, a large-scale redevelopment of Huwei’s Beigang and Anqingzhen waterways. The project combines a strategic master plan with the landscape design in an effort to move beyond the mono-functional approach for controlling and distributing water. Besides storing and capturing water, the proposal also opens up access to the river and the natural ecosystem by integrating cycling paths, cultural amenities, and ecological systems. The master plan also includes a comprehensive strategy for flood resilience while improving the quantity and quality of available water. The project is expected to be completed in 2026.
St. Marks Square (Piazza San Marco) during flood (acqua alta). Image via Shutterstock | Ihor Serdyukov
The Italian city installed glass barriers around the 900-year-old church to keep the waters out. The decision was made after near-record flooding in December 2022, preventing a repeat of the November 2019 near-catastrophe that aged parts of the building “20 years in a day,” according to Basilica’s Procuratoria governing body. The temporary structure is fixed until the MOSE system fully works by the end of 2025, protecting the city of Venice, Italy, and the Venetian Lagoon from flooding.
Climate change has been one of the most pressing topics of this year, and for a good reason. Its effects are visible not only in natural habitats but also in urban environments. The construction industry has an important role to play in this dynamic. Throughout the year, events such as COP27 emphasized the importance of striving to achieve net carbon zero and the challenges faced by developing countries affected by increasingly devastating natural disasters. Possible directions for development include actions at varying stages and scales, from optimizing green spaces for urban heat control to employing local and innovative building materials to minimize the carbon footprint or passing laws that help create more sustainable urban and natural environments.
This article represents a roundup of articles published on ArchDaily during the course of 2022 with themes related to climate change and architecture’s potential to make a difference. It breaks down the topic into four main questions: What Are Cities Doing to Mitigate Urban Heat? How to Tackle Rising Sea Levels? What Was COP27 and Why Does It Matter? Can Building Materials Play a Role in Achieving These Goals? The last section presents an overview of new legislation approved during 2022 as a way of understanding how state and local governments are imposing this need for change.
Starting on November 6, world leaders are gathering in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, for COP27. The name stands for the 27th conference of parties, an almost annual event started under the 1992 UN framework convention on climate change (UNFCCC). The purpose of these conferences is to ensure that counties around the world are committed to taking action to avoid dangerous climate change and find ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions globally in an equitable way. The effectiveness of these meetings varied throughout the years, with some successful initiatives, like the 2015 Paris Agreement, a legally binding international treaty adopted by 196 Parties with the goal of limiting global warming below 2, preferably 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels.
The passage of the Biden Administration’s climate change package, the so-called “Inflation Reduction Act,” has predictably split along partisan lines, with Republicans characterizing the bill as an act of reckless government spending, certain to raise taxes and fuel further inflation. But does this act really represent reckless spending? The legislation authorizes $430 billion in spending, the bulk of which—more than $300 billion—is earmarked for tax credits; other spending, and initiatives aimed at stimulating the clean energy economy; and reducing carbon emissions. (The bill also allows Medicare to negotiate prices with drug companies for certain expensive drugs.) The bill is funded in part by a 15% minimum tax on large corporations and an excise tax on companies that repurchase shares of their own stock. Given the scope of the problem, and the escalating future costs of climate inaction, this legislation is an exceedingly modest, but very necessary, first step.
https://www.archdaily.com/988604/its-time-to-be-honest-about-the-impending-costs-of-climate-changeMartin C. Pedersen, Steven Bingler
Record monsoon rains, in part due to melting glaciers in Pakistan’s northern mountains, have brought devastating floods that have covered over a third of the country’s surface. According to BBC and UN estimates, around 33 million Pakistani, one in seven people, have been affected by the floods, as more than 500,000 houses have been destroyed or severely damaged. Flood waters have also swept away an estimated 700,000 heads of livestock and damaged over 3.6 million acres of crops. The Sindh province is the hardest hit, receiving 464% more rain than the 30-year average.
Flooding is a significant problem for buildings all around the world, including architectural treasures like the Farnsworth House that have been plagued by the issue time and time again. In particular, one-third of the entire continental U.S. are at risk of flooding this spring, especially the Northern Plains, Upper Midwest, and Deep South. In April of 2019, deadly floods decimated parts of Mozambique, Malawi, Zimbabwe, and Iran as well, resulting in a low estimate of 1,000 deaths while tens of thousands more were displaced. While architecture cannot solve or even fully protect from the most deadly floods, it is possible – and necessary – to take several protective measures that could mitigate damage and consequently save lives.
