By Walking along Flat Street in Brattleboro, Vermont this morning before businesses opened, I saw a sign that an important lesson about resilience had been learned over the past year. The floodgates were up in numerous doorways. Flat Street, as some readers may recall, lies in the floodplain of the
Sea-level Rise, Storm Surges, and Delaware’s Resilience Challenge (with a Sandy update)
Update Note, October 30, 2012 With Post-tropical Cyclone Sandy still whirling around somewhere to my west, the article below feels prescient. It wasn’t of course – there was no advance knowledge of this particular storm – but what just happened with Sandy is well in line with climate change trends.
By Fundamentals of Resilient Design #7: Renewable Energy Systems for Emergency Use
House location and design are the starting points in achieving resilience—with such considerations as where the house located, how well it can weather storms and flooding, and how effectively it retains heat and utilizes passive solar for heating and daylighting. Beyond that, we should look to renewable energy systems for
Fundamentals of Resilient Design #6: Natural Cooling
A blog on cooling? In September? What gives? In my recent series of blogs, I’ve been laying out some of the basics of resilient design—which will become all the more important in this age of climate change. Achieving resilience in homes not only involves keeping them comfortable in the winter
Fundamentals of Resilient Design #5: Passive Solar Heating
When combined with a highly insulated building envelope, passive solar is the best way to ensure that a home will maintain livable conditions in the event of loss of power or heating fuel. As I discussed in my previous blog, a resilient home is extremely well-insulated, so that it can
Fundamentals of Resilient Design #4: Dramatically Better Building Envelopes
When most people think about resilience—resilience during a storm, for example—they think only about resilience during the event. How effectively will the building withstand strong winds or flooding? Equally important, if not more important, is resilience in the aftermath of that event. Hurricanes, ice storms, blizzards, wildfires, tornadoes, and other
Fundamentals of Resilient Design #3: Creating Smarter Buildings and Communities
As we look to create homes and communities that will keep us comfortable and safe in a world of climate change, terrorism, and other vulnerabilities, there are a handful of strategies that I group loosely under the heading of “smarter design.” Some of these strategies come into play more at
Fundamentals of Resilient Design #2: Designing Homes for More Intense Storms
Flooding from Tropical Storm Irene in Brandon, Vermont on September 12, 2011. Photo: Angela Drexel – Creative Commons license Anybody who was in Vermont one year ago this week and witnessed the raging floodwaters of Hurricane Irene and the havoc they wreaked, understands the vulnerabilities we face from intense
Fundamentals of Resilient Design #1: Making the Case
I thought a lot about resilience last year, during a six-week sabbatical bike ride through the Southwest. I covered a little over 1,900 miles, most of it over land that hadn’t seen a drop of rain since the previous fall; some of those areas—mostly in Texas—still hadn’t received significant precipitation months after my return home.
