RESILIENT DESIGN + LIVING [RD+L]™
WHAT IS RESILIENT DESIGN?
Resilient design is most commonly associated with disaster prone areas where buildings are designed to withstand severe storms, flooding, wildfire, and other environmental impacts brought about by natural causes, climate change, or infrastructure failures. The Resilient Design Institute defines Resilient Design as the “intentional design of buildings, landscapes, communities, and regions in response to these vulnerabilities”.
MAADKreatif™ Studio, a Colorado based design consultancy company, sees Resilient Design as a smart strategy and a practical yet encompassing design approach for the 21st century rapidly changing environment and unpredictable climate.
“Resilient buildings are honest, unembellished, unpretentious. They stand naked and exposed, in a way, bold and completely at ease in their surroundings.” according to Marc Gerritsen, partner and principal designer of MAADKreatif™ Studio.
“More than focusing on sustainability and minimizing our impact on the environment, resilient design assimilates and works in partnership with its surrounding to enhance the building performance and durability. Resilient buildings, by definition, are sustainable, green/eco-friendly, and well-designed. They are also cost- effective, efficient, and secure investments”
WHAT IS RESILIENT LIVING?
Resilient Living places high priority on the well-being of a building’s occupants. The recent emergence of “Well Design” standards have increased our awareness on the impact of design on our health. Resilient design takes this a step further. “Our well-being is encoded in our DNA and we are inherently resilient”, adds Adria W Lake, partner and managing director of MAADKreatif™ Studio.
“But our dependence on modern comforts and desire to control our environment have weakened our immune systems, robbed us of a good night sleep, and frankly, made us weak and sickly”. Resilient design’s principles of self-reliance, passive systems, durability, and collaboration with nature require its occupants to be in-tuned and engaged with their environment.
“We are not built for constant comfort and homeostasis. When we expose ourselves to varying conditions and live in spaces that connect us to rather than insulate us from our surroundings, we feel better, stronger, and happier,” Adria continues, “and that is the very definition of being well”.
RD+L PRINCIPLES
Adaptability
Rather than safeguarding the buildings from all probable threats and unpredictable conditions, at MAADKreatif™ Studio we design robust structures that can quickly respond to and continue to function in all types of disruptions.
Adaptability also translates to choosing durable materials such as copper, raw untreated steel, and hard wood that require low maintenance and will age beautifully when exposed to the extreme surrounding.
Regeneration + Reusability
Minimizing a building’s footprint or choosing sustainable building materials do not necessarily lessen the impact and disruption on the environment and the local ecosystem.
But, by focusing on Regeneration and Reusability, we choose materials, fixtures, and finishes used can be re-used or re-purposed without recycling or any additional processing.
More than 100 million tons of building related construction and demolition debris are sent to landfills in the US each year, most are difficult or very costly to recycle, which is why they make up about 40% of waste stream.
Scalability
One of the limitations of using green/sustainable materials is scalability. In fact, in eco-speak, scalability is a dirty word as reducing one’s impact on the environment is its core objective.
Resilient Design thinks differently. Scalability reduces costs and increases demand which bring about change and progress. Scalability is not only an increase in size or quantity, however. It is a measure of a method’s viability.