Architects Foundation issues first annual report on National Resilience Initiative

The Architects Foundation released its first annual report on the National Resilience Initiative (NRI), a network of resilient design studios geared toward helping communities become more resilient to natural disasters and climate change.

The report, “In Flux: Community Design for Change, Chance and Opportunity,” was unveiled Monday at the Clinton Global Initiative’s (CGI) Annual meeting. It details the activities for the past year, including the work of the NRI’s three charter members: the New Jersey Institute of Technology's Center for Resilient Design; at the University of Arkansas Community Design Center at the Fay Jones School of Architecture; and Mississippi State University's Gulf Coast Community Design Studio, located in Biloxi, Mississippi.

The report provides a look at how architects work with communities through the National Resilience Design Network, in which the three charter members of the NRI offer architectural and building services to their respective communities.

Examples of project works outlined in case studies in the report include:

• Mississippi St. University has developed a Women in Construction center and addressed watershed planning issues.
• University of Arkansas designed local commerce and community safe rooms and proposed the development of an urban food production system.
• NJIT held a design workshop that examined how to strengthen a transit terminal and assessed the potential for using distributed power generation to increase energy-efficiency and reduce hazard vulnerability.

The NRI annual report also details how to identify policy impediments to enacting resilient design. The program envisions a resilience network, providing students and practicing architects information on how to make communities safer, stronger and more equitable.