3R's of Disaster Resilience

Resilience in architecture has been a staple of design - from prehistoric man looking for more decent shelter than thatched leaves and branches to the modern era of design, we have always strived to make what we build last. These days, resilience isn’t just about building things that last because we want them to last, these days, we have to do so because of numerous factors - chief among them is the force of nature. Storms, hurricanes, and things of the like have impeded the progress of our society by a lot more than we expect. It’s never just a lost home or a lost small building, it’s always more than that - we lose places of identity and community whenever nature’s vengeful wrath comes knocking on our doors.

With that, I present to you my version of the 3Rs - a simple guide from Southeast Asia (the Philippines). In the Philippines, we almost yearly encounter a Category 4 or Category 5 typhoon - and while relief efforts in the country are almost always admirable, I believe that the responses should include better preparation than others.

 

Building Resilience

Modern Architecture in the Philippines is essentially an amalgam of an evolved form of a plethora of architectural styles, chief among them, the design trends of the West. These trends, while useful, are not the best defense when a Category 5 Typhoon comes knocking on your door, and with that, the first R - Resilience. The unfortunate reality is that storm-ravaged cities and areas of the country are essentially unaware of how to build the right homes, much less the proper defenses. While bays and the like are often tourist destinations or places of leisure, I believe that investing in better, more contextualized, breakwater barriers would be a good first step in creating a better haven against storms and typhoons. It’s also scenarios like these that remind me of Alejandro Aravena’s Ted Talk wherein he talked about how the solutions to stop the forced entry of typhoons will always end in a destroyed wall or destroyed infrastructure - therefore designing good buffer zones filled with greeneries and trees to absorb those hits for us would be a better design solution than a wall and the country does have a natural abundance of mangroves, which might be a good place to start. 

 

Some cultures even have good vernacular architecture to create designs for homes that can help weather the storm - in our country, the Ivatan House primarily made of stone, wood, and thatch, is a simple albeit powerful support for this statement. It’s perhaps the prime example of a disaster-resilient house without all the bells and whistles that modern architecture boasts. It is a prime example of a relic from that past that bears weight and meaning in the future. I firmly believe that creating a modernized version of this could help solve some of the home damage problems that typhoons present in our country

 

Another place to start looking for improvements is with major city infrastructure - as Typhoon Odette, international name ‘Rai’, has just recently passed, reports of various newly built gymnasiums and other public infrastructure have been reported to be completely devastated despite just recently finishing construction. While it is foolish to expect all infrastructure to remain standing without blemish after a nasty storm, it is however a public interest concern that a newly constructed building would collapse completely after that. You’d expect to find some form of the structure standing in the wreck’s space but seeing that the gymnasium is destroyed is just a testament to the lack of awareness and design resilience that the design and construction offered. 

 

The worst part of the whole scenario is the fact that there has been no initiative to design better houses even if the evidence suggests that we should look into the subject matter more. The immensely incorrect urban planning solutions have also created a lack of immediate access and an overabundance of flooding in storm-ravaged cities. Moving utility lines to underground channels should also be a solution for resilience, designing these channels, would ensure the continued service of utilities to affected areas.

 

In summary, protect the lands by placing the appropriate buffer zones along the coastlines fitted with the proper breakwater barriers, and ensure that flying debris and destroyed infrastructure would be reduced by constructing more contextually resilient buildings. On top of that, cities should be planned so in the event of an emergency, the city has uninterrupted access to supplies and utilities - these are especially important in typhoon situations.

 

 

Ensure Refuge

    The second R is Refuge - if the storm does prove stronger than residences could take, public infrastructure designed for mass use should be used as evacuation centers - i.e. schools, gymnasiums, and the like. While it has become increasingly apparent that creating refugee centers out of these spaces is a common practice in our country, the quality of refugee centers these areas make is downright unsuitable for said emergencies. That isn’t to say that we should prioritize designing evacuation centers but what we should focus on is designing with the awareness that public schools, gymnasiums, barangay halls, and facilities of the like will most likely be subjected to that kind of use - if they will be used that way then why not just design some parts of it with that intent. Why not ensure that the schools that will be constructed will be out of harm's way or in a more ‘unassailable’ area? 

 

    Furthermore, ensuring that structures that fulfill that purpose will last is an important piece of this step. The structures that have been set in place must be strong to withstand a storm for it to be useful to its citizens - apart from its primary focus, of course. Knowing that the space may be used for evacuation/refugee purposes has to be a part of the design considerations of cities in the regular storm's path, otherwise, we would have to constantly rebuild and intensively repair broken infrastructure every year.

 

    To sum up, the design, materials, and construction methods of buildings and homes in storm-ravaged areas should be able to withstand strong storms, otherwise, constant rebuilding or repair will be done too frequently. After all, if these structures don’t fall, the impact of the storm on the areas would be a lot less extreme - the sooner the people can go back to their regular lives, and more importantly, to their homes.

 

 

Efficient Rebuild

Lastly, Rebuild, of course, no city can claim that it conquered a storm unscathed - there will always be damages. Building on the Refuge step, Rebuild focuses on returning to normal - homes and infrastructure must be repaired/rebuilt to reduce the anxiety that the typhoon has caused and so that those affected can return their daily lives. Not only should the step focus on the physical act of rebuilding, but also on the societal act of rebuilding - in the Philippines, most storm-ravaged areas have a hard time getting back to the way things were because of the severity of the damage caused by some typhoons, therefore, rebuild should help smooth the transition over for them.

    

    Case in point, if your house was destroyed by the typhoon, where would you go? What would you do? How can you possibly restart your life after an event like that? While we don’t have all the answers to these scenarios, we do have the power to ensure that the transition can be a bit smoother. Countries that are commonly afflicted by natural calamities should have provisional plans for temporary housing and shelter - while these additional steps wouldn’t solve problems in one shot, they would, however, add a bit of comfort to the afflicted. Designing deployable temporary housing should be in the aforementioned emergency plan - the design doesn’t need too many bells and whistles but it does have to perform its primary function perfectly. Even though those afflicted will indeed have a hard time reconciling solutions, at least they have a bit of a temporary solution for one of their chief problems.

 

    The Rebuild step has to have plans in place for smooth transitions of people from evacuation/refugee center to temporary house/shelter to their own house. Rebuild not only focuses on the physical rebuild of the damaged structures but also on the affected livelihoods - specific and contextualized infrastructure must be in place so that the transitional period and anxiety for these events will shrink over time. 

 

 

    In conclusion, while various countries have various hurdles with disaster resilience architecture - i.e. the politicking of government agencies and the general bureaucracy - there is an upside, we the architects, have the power to make small corrections inside the incorrect system. We have the power to dictate what needs to be done from a more learned and informed standpoint, as opposed to a biased one. A design trend here and an influential project there may help society see the simple albeit powerful benefits that disaster resilient architecture can provide.