My Resilient Design course at BAC starts soon

The online course, Resilient Design, that I’ve been teaching once or twice a year for the past three years, starts on January 17th. It’s an eight-week, graduate-level course that addresses key topics of resilient design, including vulnerabilities to storms and other natural disasters, and strategies for enhancing the resilience of our buildings and communities. The course is entirely “asynchronous,” meaning that students can participate in the discussion forums on their own time. The readings are drawn from various sources, but mostly from the Resilient Design Institute and The BuildingGreen Report (previously Environmental Building News).

Information on the course is available here. The course is offered through the Boston Architectural College’s Sustainable Design Institute. You will find information on registration at that site.

The abbreviated course schedule is as follows:

Week 1 – Resilience and Sustainability; course introduction

Definitions of resilience and resilient design

RDI’s Resilient Design Principles

How resilience relates to sustainability

Week 2 – Resilient Design for Buildings

Storms – wind, uplift

Flooding – flood zones, elevated living spaces, elevating mechanical & electrical, wetable building materials

Week 3 – Resilient Design for Buildings – Part II

Passive survivability

Building envelope design to maintain livable conditions without power or heating fuel

Week 4 – Resilient Design for Buildings – Part III

Passive solar design

Islandable solar power systems

Week 5 – Water Issues and Resilience

Water efficiency to reduce demand

Water storage

Rainwater harvesting

Alternative water pumping systems

Wastewater options for greater resilience

Week 6 – Community Resilience

Walkable, bikable communities

Density

Functionality in the event of gasoline shortages

Social and cultural aspects of resilience

Week 7 – Other Aspects of Resilience

Food security and local agriculture

Resilient ecosystems – coastal restoration for protections, forest health with global warming (assisted migration of more southern species)

Week 8 – Course Wrap-up

If you have any questions, post them in the comment field below, and I’ll respond.

-Alex Wilson

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.

One thought on “My Resilient Design course at BAC starts soon”

John says:

January 16, 2017 at 1:50 am

Alex, I wanted to take this class last semester as it has direct connection to my Thesis topic, but it was not being offered last semester. I’d like to have a conversation with you if you have some time.

John, M.Arch Candidate

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