THE BIG IDEA RESILIENT IN THE EXTREME
PRIORITIZING SUSTAINABILITY in an effort to fend off climate change has become mainstream across the design industry. But what can architects do when the planet seems to turn against us anyway? The acceleration of global warming and its adverse effects—wildfires, droughts, flooding, and other natural disasters—is bringing to the forefront an approach to architecture that, while not new, is rapidly gaining a following around the world. Resilient design aims to mitigate the impact of external threats via inventive solutions.
Think of resilient design as a cousin to sustainability: The two are linked, but not the same. “Sustainability is about how you establish something regenerative by using resources in an appropriate, ideally netzero, way,” says Seattle architect Robert Hutchinson. “Resiliency is the ability to take on or counteract an event,” whether a short-term disaster or long-term stressors.
In essence, resilient design examines the environmental situation in a particular region
