Looking to Resilient Design for a Cyclone-Battered Coastal City in India

Impacts of Cyclone Hudhud at Visakhapatnam, India, on October 13, 2014. Photo: Adityamadhav83, Creative Commons license

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The following is provided by Ramana Koti, a building performance analyst with Lord Aeck Sargent in Atlanta, Georgia. -Alex Wilson

Heavy damage and disruption to normal life caused by severe weather have been exemplified by Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy and the Greensburg, KS, tornado among others in recent times. While I’ve been a resident of US for a while now, the recent damage to my hometown in India, Visakhapatnam (Vizag), from the cyclone Hudhud has been very saddening.

Things seem to be returning to normal very slowly but the scale of interruption to power, water, and other daily supplies has been unprecedented, even for Vizagites already hardened by poor infrastructure. For the first time to my knowledge, the festival of lights, Diwali, usually celebrated with oil lamps and fireworks, was much muted this past Thursday.

It turns out, Visakhapatnam has to be entirely rebuilt after cyclone Hudhud. As harrowing and disruptive such weather events tend to be, they can also be opportunities to rebuild wisely. This is where principles of Passive Survivability and Resilient Design come into the picture.

Passive Survivability is a building’s ability to maintain critical life-support conditions if services such as power, heating fuel, or water are lost. (More details here.)

Resilience is the capacity to adapt to changing conditions and to maintain or regain functionality and vitality in the face of stress or disturbance. It is the capacity to bounce back after a disturbance or interruption of some sort. (Some strategies are listed here.)

In a blog post of mine from September 2012 titled Visakhapatnam and Architecture – I, I had argued that Visakhapatnam should combat placelessness and explore an architecture that responds to regional factors such as climate, vernacular design, and culture, while including principles of Passive Survivability.

With Hudhud and its aftermath fresh on their minds, as Vizagites make plans for restoring normalcy, the approach to building/rebuilding Visakhapatnam seems like a worthwhile discussion to revisit.

A private tanker supplying potable water in Visakhapatnam. Photo: Reuters — A private tanker supplying potable water in Visakhapatnam. Photo: Ramana Koti, 2012

How can Passive Survivability help Visakhapatnam?

Originally crafted in response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, this concept has universal applicability and can be adapted to Visakhapatnam’s climate and culture. For example:

Fenestration and spatial design for natural ventilation would greatly enhance comfort and survivability during loss of power, given the hot and humid climate of Visakhapatnam.
Maximizing access to daylight in buildings would improve functionality during the day when electric lighting is affected by loss of power. This approach to daylight design can complement natural ventilation strategies.
Municipal water is a scarce commodity and groundwater availability is spotty. Purchasing potable water from private suppliers is a way of life for several communities. Rainwater harvesting policy and design guidelines, given the abundant rainfall experienced by Visakhapatnam, can help with access to water both during normalcy and following extreme weather events. Cities like Bengaluru already have rainwater related ordinances. Recharging the groundwater table can be a useful application for rainwater in addition to being stored for both potable and non-potable uses.

How can Resilient Design help Visakhapatnam?

Hudhud caused extended power outage that lasted for days and supply has been intermittent ever since. Scarcity of commodities like milk and gasoline created anxiety and unrest. Some example strategies to improve resilience:

Buildings with on-site renewable energy can help with cellphone charging during loss of power. They can also help with refrigeration of milk and perishable food supplies, water purification, etc. This could be applied at a building scale or at a community scale.
Materiality and construction techniques should take into account factors such as damage from falling trees, corrosion from the salty/humid coastal breezes, etc.
Building design that can withstand flooding can help prevent loss of habitat
Design of infrastructure such as roads and drains that can withstand flooding

Clearly, Passive Survivability and Resilient Design are not mutually exclusive. Strategies in one area can help in the other. The strategies listed here are by no means exhaustive, the links provided earlier with the definitions are more comprehensive resources.

Extreme weather events might be out of our control but preparedness and responsiveness are definitely within our control. I urge all the practicing architects, planners, and policy makers who will be influencing the rebuilding of Visakhapatnam to base their approaches on lessons learned from the recent disruptions and long term infrastructure issues while giving Passive Survivability and Resilient Design due attention. Let us prevent Hudhud and its aftermath from becoming a lost opportunity. If Greensburg can do it, so can Visakhapatnam!

Ramana Koti, LEED AP BD&C
Associate
Lord Aeck Sargent, Atlanta

David W. Orr, Ph.D

David W. Orr is Paul Sears Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies & Politics, Emeritus. He also served as “Counselor to the President” of Oberlin College for ten years. He is the author of eight books, including Dangerous Years: Climate Change and the Long Emergency (Yale, 2016) and Down to the Wire: Confronting Climate Collapse (Oxford, 2009) and co-editor of three others. He has authored over 220 articles, reviews, book chapters, and professional publications. In the past twenty-five years he has served as a board member or adviser to ten foundations and on the Boards of many organizations including the Rocky Mountain Institute, Bioneers, and the Aldo Leopold Foundation.

He is currently a Trustee of the Alliance for Sustainable Colorado, Children and Nature Network, and the WorldWatch Institute. He has been awarded nine honorary degrees and a dozen other awards including a Lyndhurst Prize, a National Achievement Award from the National Wildlife Federation, leadership awards from the U.S. Green Building Council (2014) and from Second Nature (2012), and a lifetime achievement award from Green Energy Ohio and the North American Association for Environmental Education. He has lectured at hundreds of colleges and universities throughout the U.S., Europe, Latin America, and Asia. He headed the effort to design, fund, and build the Adam Joseph Lewis Center, which was named by an AIA panel in 2010 as “the most important green building of the past thirty years,” as “one of thirty milestone buildings of the twentieth century” by the U.S. Department of Energy, and as one of “52 game-changing buildings of the past 170 years” by the editors of Building Design +Construction in January, 2016. He was instrumental in the design and funding of the Peter B. Lewis Gateway Center. He is the founder of the Oberlin Project and a founder of the journal Solutions. His current work is on the state of American democracy.