2021 is beginning with the suite of COVID-19 vaccines. As the world clamors to immunize against the pandemic, we turn to the concept of immunization: comprehensive protection against a particular illness. It makes me wonder about the idea of vaccines…
Florida residents are well aware of the dangers posed by the coastal environment. Rising sea levels, flooding from rain events or tidal surge, drought-induced wildfires, and high wind events, including hurricanes, must be taken into consideration for community planning and sustainable development designs.
With increasing energy demand and natural/human-induced disasters in recent years, the two key concepts—sustainability and resiliency—are crucial for engineers and architects in the current design and construction industry.
Architects, engineers and builders alike recognize that helping buildings and strengthening systems to withstand and recover quickly from natural disasters is critical. This requires the latest technical knowledge as well as insight into innovative material science.
More than half—52%—of Americans live near a coast along a body of water. These locations near waterways provided convenient access to trade routes, but the nearness to water and its climatic effects and storms also challenge the cities’ infrastructures.
Designed immediately after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster in Japan, YKK Headquarters reprioritized its sustainability and resiliency goals to become one of the highest performing office buildings in Tokyo.
For buildings to withstand sea-level rise, coastline erosion, and hurricanes, they need to be built to work with nature, not against it. The Brock Environmental Center is a living example of how to minimize impact on the environment while being resilient to future challenges. The triple net zero building is the latest to receive Living Building Challenge certification and is the first in the U.S. to receive a permit for drinking rainwater treated to federal standards.
Resilient design is gaining traction, but costs and predicting future climate change effects pose barriers.
Houston's recent floods demonstrate the disastrous consequences of putting people, pavement and buildings in vulnerable places.
As water resources grow increasingly taxed and scarce in communities across the U.S., an Atlanta university is turning to an unlikely resource to reduce its drinking water demand: the local sewer. The WaterHub at Emory University turns waste into a resource, recycling wastewater via an ecological treatment facility–the first of its kind in the U.S. Its sustainable treatment process sets an example of how adaptive technology can be used to meet water needs while reducing water costs.
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