Colorado Real Estate Journal - October 21, 2015
As I watch raindrops temporarily relieve Colorado’s overly dry grasses, I am reminded of the wildfires our region has experienced in recent years, as well as the devastating floods. I am reminded, too, of the architects’ role in creating resilient communities. Last year the American Institute of Architects launched the Architects Foundation to advance excellence in design for the benefit of the public. As a philanthropic extension of the AIA, the foundation is dedicated to the belief that good design is good for all and plays an essential role in transforming lives and building a better world. With this objective in mind, the foundation developed the National Resilience Initiative to create a network of design studios throughout the country dedicated to informing and educating local stakeholders about resilient building and planning practices – all designed to help local communities prepare for the next disaster, whether natural or systemic. In September, at the Clinton Global Initiative's annual meeting in New York, the Architects Foundation unveiled its first report: In Flux: Community Design for Change, Chance and Opportunity, a compendium of NRI activities for the past year. This report includes the work of the three charter members: New Jersey Institute of Technology's Center for Resilient Design, Arkansas University's Community Design Center at the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Mississippi State University's Gulf Coast Community Design Studio. The foundation’s ultimate goal is for the NRI to be part of a growing system of resilience enterprises taking aim at the many challenges communities face at this important juncture in human history. The Architects Foundation intends for the NRI’s designthinking, problem-solving and networking between studios and local, regional, federal and international stake-holders to offer a fresh and collaborative model for mitigating social and disaster-related risks across the globe. At CGI, the foundation’s executive director, Sherry-Lee Bloodworth-Botop, is mounting a major effort to move the NRI forward. Three additional design studios will be selected in 2016 for the West Coast, the Upper Midwest and MidAtlantic regions – via a national search process that will kick off later this year. The network of regional resilience design studios will extend across all 10 standard federal regions. In 36 months, the foundation will have approximately 20 interconnected regional resilience design studios as part of the largest network of resilient design spanning across multiple sectors, industries and communities. The goal for each local resilient design studio will be as follows: • Serve as a central, go-to community resource on resilience activities and design solutions; • Elevate and inform architectural practice, and diffuse resilience strategies and design solutions; • Provide research, technical information and project case studies to municipal leaders that showcase the role of design and the built environment in community resilience to help move their communities from awareness to action; • Offer architects, land use planners, government officials and funders opportunities to work directly with communities to develop, refine and implement resilience strategies; • Build an archive of community demonstration projects to benefit other communities at the regional, national and global scale; and • Have a dedicated studio director manage each design studio’s projects and staff, and be responsible for key regional relationships and securing studio/project funding. Design studios will retain support from university professors, administrators and students for the delivery of design, research and training. The Architects Foundation aims to secure investments from corporate partners and foundations to support the launch of the three additional studios as well as key training, fellowship and construction programs. In three years, the goal is for communities to appreciate the importance of resilient design approaches, and for the studios to serve as a conduit providing resilient design services and information to improve and strengthen their response to weather disasters and systemic challenges, as well as effects of climate change. Given the tremendous loss and disruption caused by increasingly more frequent natural disasters of all types, the NRI is an investment with a big payback. For more information, see architectsfoundation.org.