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