2022 AIA/ACSA Intersections Research Conference: RESILIENT FUTURES

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) AR-6 report from the United Nations spelled out how urbanization has pushed up intense rainfall in cities across South Asia using several scientific pieces of evidence generated on Indian cities. The report builds on an analysis by NASA predicting that several Asian cities located either on or near the coastline would have to withstand significant sea level rise by 2100.  The Eastern Waterfront of Mumbai city is a property which is mainly under the possession of the Mumbai Port Authority (MPA), a large holding for the Indian Navy and other Government activities. This area is predominantly used as a port and has been opened for new development in recent months. As the city is growing, this land will play a vital role in the future development of the city. This area, based on the existing first estimates made by NASA and CIRES, University of Colorado studies, indicates fast deterioration by the liquefaction of soil. There is a dire need to study the area in greater detail and create a comprehensive understanding of the impact of sea level rise before new infrastructure is developed that brings more vulnerable people to this site. This paper presents an expanding innovative solutions design exercise and supports a study that focuses on the issue and also a mitigation strategy through green infrastructure solutions. It will involve the expertise of University of Notre Dame, University of Colorado, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and Xylem Water Solutions & Water Technologies.  As in many cases, existing datasets for sea level rise for coastal cities may have limited amounts of information available. This is the case for the datasets available and the predictability of sea level and flooding impacts on the future development of the eastern waterfront of Mumbai. To provide actionable science information for planning and adaptation activities related to rising seas in coastal cities, NASA has created an interdisciplinary science team called the NASA Sea Level Change Team (N-SLCT). NASA is sharing the details of sea level rise for the eastern coastal front of Mumbai for this project. The University of Colorado is sharing vertical land motion data and Xylem is collecting inundation information for the site. The goals of this project have been to 1) improve the understanding of cumulative effect of sea level rise, vertical land motion and land inundation on the site and 2) translate this understanding into a report for the Mumbai Port Authority into a form that is useful for planning solutions for the site. This paper presents advantages of the breadth of expertise at University of Notre Dame, on the N-SLCT, University of Colorado and with the expertise from Xylem water solutions to provide a comprehensive research and design solution to meet specific needs of coastal resilience before the eastern waterfront gets developed. This project will house a few million people once developed with the hope of reducing the impact of coastal flooding and its consecutive impact on the urban development of the area.

Over the next fifty years, climate change will have profound impacts on The City of Miami Beach, FL (pop. 87,039), with sea level rising an average of 48’’ [1] in its nationally recognized historic districts. The city is outstanding for its fourteen local and four national historic districts containing nearly 2,224 [2] contributing buildings.  This paper will explore the collaborative interdisciplinary structure, community engagement and design results of the past four years of a final-year graduate architectural design studio focused on historic preservation and climate change.  In this studio, students have uncovered individual, dynamic building histories and studied predictions for sea level rise that inform more resilient futures. In partnership with City of Miami Beach staff members and elected officials, with sea level scientists and experts in resilience, the design studio has utilized non-conventional resources like Ancestry.com, Newspapers.com, zillow.com along with traditional archival materials like building cards, new zoning proposals, and existing local and national sources. Students have used datasets of buildings’ form and structure, owner(s), builder(s), and contractor(s).  They examine modifications, inhabitants, and valuation over time. In addition to information about the buildings, students include data about the present and future geological, hydrological and other environmental conditions, and present and proposed zoning regulations.  The dynamic histories that emerge about immigrant populations, networks of social connections and activities, and the use and reuse of natural and built resources, support student visions of unique futures that are uniquely resilient, equitable and based upon a level of historical and environmental accuracy not previously attained. These visions are used to initiate public conversations among residents and elected officials, and to propose optimal resilience solutions that preserve historic neighborhoods in the face of increasingly complex economic, social, political, and environmental constraints.  This presentation explores the various public engagement strategies that have been utilized in the design studio and the ways in which the students’ resiliency visions lay the groundwork for a variety of speculative initiatives ranging from new zoning proposals and a global competition to help Miami Beach inspire their citizens using historic preservation as a driver of resilience, to a new AI-driven resiliency dashboard to help homeowners make better decisions as they seek to preserve and make more resilient their historic structures. Ultimately, balancing smart add-on building incentives with key desires to preserve the aesthetics of the historic building fabric is now—and will continue to be—a key element of public debate and engagement.

Washington State’s Puget Sound Region faces a crisis. A shortfall of over 156,000 affordable housing units has yielded the nation’s third largest population of people experiencing homelessness, which disproportionately impacts LGBTQ youth and people of color.1 Without swift and decisive action at scale, the crisis will worsen as the region is expected to grow by an additional 1.8 million residents by 2050.2 At the same time, the region is investing nearly $54 billion in light rail and bus rapid transit with over sixty high capacity transit stations scheduled to open between now and 2041.3 (redacted), a volunteer group of civic leaders from the public, private, non-profit and academic sectors, including architecture and real estate faculty from the (redacted), is focused on leveraging this historic transit investment to address the region’s housing and climate crises at scale by building complete, equitable and resilient communities with an abundance of affordable housing, public open space and neighborhood amenities at station areas. With funding from the JP Morgan Chase Foundation and Washington State Department of Commerce, the group is working with elected leaders, city staff, technical advisors and community stakeholders from multiple jurisdictions in designing and advocating for an entity, the Housing Benefits District (HBD), that will ensure that all of the region’s residents prosper from its transit investment. The HBD is a quasi-government entity that will have taxing and bonding authority to purchase and hold land in transit station areas for affordable housing development, invest in key station area infrastructure such as parks, open space and complete streets, and assist local jurisdictions with equitable community engagement, station area planning and placemaking strategies. The HBD will also purchase and hold land to sell to market rate developers at a profit, the proceeds from which will fund additional land acquisition and community infrastructure investments. The goal of the HBD is to ensure, and accelerate, the development of equitable and resilient, mixed income neighborhoods by transferring land from private to community ownership before market forces drive up its cost. In addition to affordable rental housing, the HBD will increase opportunities for affordable homeownership, especially for BIPOC households, while reducing the need for car ownership and the cost and carbon emissions it entails. The effort includes the development of a technical manual and prototype online station area profiles and impact models to help jurisdictions best leverage their community engagement, planning, land acquisition and community infrastructure investments while minimizing the displacement of small businesses and households. A pilot project is being developed in collaboration with three Puget Sound cities and the group is building a robust community coalition to pass state legislation to make the HBD a reality. University faculty have helped shape the HBD framework through publications and engagement with community stakeholders. University-based interdisciplinary design studios have played a key role in cultivating the vision for Housing Benefits Districts by developing case study station area plans, illustrations, supporting documents and analysis of HBD interventions and their potential impacts on housing affordability, neighborhood amenities and community wellbeing.

Currently, around 680 million people (10% of world population) live in low-lying coastal regions that are susceptible to flooding (IPCC 2019). The “Hawai‘i Sea Level Rise Vulnerability and Adaptation Report” predicts a $19 billion loss of land and structures due to sea level rise impacts (HCCMAC 2017). The Jean and Zohmah Charlot House is a historic residence in Honolulu, Hawaii that reflects one of the great cross-cultural collaborations between artist and architect in Hawai’i.  An important cultural and historical architectural asset that was donated to the University of Hawaii by the Charlot family, it serves as a case study on resilience-related planning and retrofits for historical residences and buildings as well as a platform for research and student learning. Recognizing that the future threats to the house’s preservation had not been identified or planned for, the Historic Hawaii Foundation contracted the UH to create research methods, engagement strategies, and an all-virtual workshop format to craft a Natural Disaster Mitigation Plan for the residence. The research team of faculty members, professionals, and students from the UH School of Architecture, Department of Urban and Regional Planning, and the National Disaster Preparedness Training Center utilized the following methods to plan for future resilience: i) identify hazards; ii) document existing site vulnerabilities; iii) map hazards; iv) review literature and compile strategies; v) engage subject matter experts; vi) develop and share plan.  The research team forged new relationships by inviting multi-disciplinary subject matter experts in hazard mitigation, disaster response, historic preservation, planning, emergency management,  structural engineering, insurance, law, architecture, and landscape architecture to a series of three workshops to identify hazards, evaluate the feasibility of implementing various mitigation strategies, and to review the plan. The three highest priority hazards identified include flooding from stream overtopping, storm surge, and sea level rise; hurricanes; and fire. Although the team could not gather in-person due to the pandemic, new technologies such as 360 degree cameras immersed the all-virtual workshop participants in site images.  An ArcGIS Storymap website was developed to compile FEMA, NOAA, PACIOOS, tsunami evacuation, watershed, and infrastructure maps, flood elevations, site vulnerabilities,  and proposed mitigation information for the workshop. This StoryMap website, enables future planners, designers, researcher, or homeowners to easily access the information generated for this project. Based on feedback from the workshops, the Disaster Mitigation Plan ranks, illustrates, and annotates short, mid, and long term strategies for flood, hurricane, and fire risk reduction for the building and site. Each strategy includes potential products, manufacturers, suppliers, costs, and logistical needs to facilitate concrete and actionable next steps. The team identified future policy development needs to mitigate flooding at a larger watershed scale and research needs (eg, groundwater inundation). This university-led collaboration offers a model to convene experts from multiple disciplines around issues that connect architecture, planning, and preservation. The quick 3-part, all-virtual, all-volunteer participant make-up also offers a low cost format for subject matter expert engagement and knowledge-sharing on resilience issues that can be broadly applied and engaged at the scale of a house.

“If states and societies do not recognize social infrastructure and how it works, they will fail to see a powerful way to promote civic engagement and social interaction, both within communities and across group lines.” Eric Klinenberg, Palaces for the People The Peacock Tract in Montgomery, Alabama is a neighborhood most often known by other names. The original designation was given to this land after its antebellum owner Michael Peacock, (a former slave owner), sold his property to developers after the Civil War. It went on to become the city’s first African-American neighborhood eventually developing a vibrant commercial district that by the 1960’s included almost every type of business needed to be self-sustaining. With the rise of this community came the city’s first African-American churches1. These most valuable pieces of social infrastructure helped change the course of American history by becoming one of Montgomery’s centers of civil rights activity. The churches of the Peacock Tract were the places that witnessed the election of Martin Luther King as leader of the Montgomery Improvement Association, the vote to extend the city bus boycott, and the final rest stop on the Selma to Montgomery March. Later, the Peacock Tract was the site of racially and politically motivated retributive urbanism against civil rights activists when the city’s African-American social infrastructure was intentionally targeted by Interstates2. The effects of this massive disruption are still seen today. I-65 runs parallel to the former business district severing it from many residences to the west. I-85 separates the remaining eastern section from Montgomery’s downtown to the north. At first look, this retaliatory urban maneuver may appear successful. However, this paper presents a design study demonstrating how the Peacock Tract has endured despite the immense piece of critical infrastructure positioned to intentionally dislocate and quarter the neighborhood into multiple zones. This research proposes that due to the strength and history of the enduring pieces of social infrastructure, specifically the historic churches, the area has yet to be overridden or abandoned, and supports the argument that the resilience of a place is inextricably tied to the strength of the social infrastructure within it. To do this, the paper highlights several interdisciplinary interventions proposed by undergraduate environmental design students. They take an optimistic approach to the Peacock Tract’s situation suggesting the disruption can be overcome through design at multiple scales. It presents a design research course where students are asked to consider the notion that if infrastructure can be a weapon of inequity, can it become an agent of connection, inclusion, or restoration as well? As design research students investigated multiple case studies highlighting overlaps between critical and social infrastructure. They worked with community partners to develop proposals providing a suture, (sometimes physical, sometimes conceptual), between the quadrants left in the interstate’s aftermath. The students’ projects include multiple disciplines of design including exhibits, buildings, landscape, planning, and public art. While each project proposes a unique programmatic solution, the intersection of social and critical infrastructure in pursuit of resilience is present throughout.

Informal settlements on riverbanks in impoverished Brazilian peripheries have been increasingly suffering from more intense annual urban floods, as in the Roncador River region in Duque de Caxias city. Increased floods are detrimental to local communities, as they damage houses and infrastructure, generate trauma, and often force these populations to relocate to distant locations, disrupting their livelihoods1. In a degraded urban watershed precariously inhabited by informal settlements, which design strategies would enhance the community’s adaptive capacity to floods and allow them to safely stay, grow, and thrive in the long term? This work proposes a comprehensive solution for flood risk reduction through an integrated approach in design. By recognizing water as an ally, this design proposal aims at building an affordable, flood-resilient, and evolutionary community. It connects a system of green areas along the river corridor and within the urban fabric with amphibious evolutionary housing (Figure 1). As a low-impact intervention, it prioritizes nature-based strategies and local community practices, fostering local economies to fight gentrification and contributing to building a more equitable future. Amphibious architecture is an adaptive solution that protects houses from flood damages, designed to float temporarily during floods and rest again on the ground when the flood is over2,3. Evolutionary housing uses flexible design strategies to increase residents’ agency and control over changes to their spaces to address their needs and aspirations according to their stage of life and budget limitations4. Buildings that are flexible, customizable, and recognized as a process instead of an end-product also contribute to sustainability as they can adapt to different functions and, thus, become more durable5.     The methodology consisted of identifying the region’s problems and opportunities, followed by a literature review on flood-risk reduction solutions and incremental housing design strategies6. Finally, two sites were selected to propose the design intervention. The design applies adaptability strategies on different scales, accepting floods, allowing transformations, and adapting to the local context, contributing to sustainability7. On the watershed scale, the green areas’ system increases soil permeability and water storage and reduces stormwater runoff. On the housing scale, residents are provided with a starter house that is half of the potential final house area on safe nearby lands, using local materials and construction techniques. The structural frame to support the house’s future expansions is provided initially with the amphibious system, enabling the starter house and expansion areas to float during floods (Figure 2). The project’s innovation relates to combining incremental design strategies with the “amphibiation”8 technique to offer good quality and affordable housing that adapts to floods, empowering marginalized communities to thrive in healthier riverscapes (Figure 3). The solution promotes economic benefits, as implementing a network of parks improves the land value and generates local sources of employment9. Incremental housing design also increases residents’ income with rental and retail opportunities. Since the problems in the Roncador River surroundings are typical of metropolitan peripheries in developing countries, this solution could also be applied to improve the livelihood of other flood-prone communities in similar informal contexts.

During the 1960s, the United States underwent a sweeping paradigm shift resulting in focused attention on curbing social inequality and environmental degradation. These ideas manifested in the arts and architecture, in part, as idealist, do-it-yourself, utopian developments executed at diverse sites across the country—the success of which helped propagate sustainable infrastructures across the globe.1 This paper explores the ways these types of idealistic projects can help imagine and implement resilient futures by acting as the test lab for experimental research imagining new social and material applications capable of addressing contemporary issues. The paper specifically investigates cross-pollination between recent projects in Europe and the United States—honing in on ongoing experiments conducted by the authors, which re-engage the historical sites of Arcosanti in rural Arizona and Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, site of the 1969 Woodstock Music and Art Fair, as incubators for research forging new technological, social, and material partnerships across the globe. The paper details current endeavors by the authors to engage and expand notions of “sustainable” architectural design through two design-build festivals arranged to be hosted in ecologically diverse contexts during the summer of 2022. The paper first outlines the site, structure, and organization of the two festivals: one in a temperate forest ecoregion of North America located on the historic site of the 1969 Woodstock festival, appropriating research into laminate wood construction first conducted by the authors at Hello Wood in Csóromfölde, Hungary; and the other in the Błędów Desert of Poland, an area of anthropogenic desertification in Central Europe which aims to expand research in silt-casting, conducted in labs at Arcosanti, Arizona, onto rapidly transforming sites across the Atlantic. This section of the paper provides a lens into the participatory research methods and engagement strategies unique to the design-build festival model, and argues for the festival model’s capacity to adapt to site conditions, transform contemporary forms of architectural production, and engender a framework of community to amplify contact and collaboration among groups of interdisciplinary experts through hands-on exploration at a construction site. Next, as an illustration of how festivals allow designers to rethink the materials that are used to build, the paper examines the development of generative material processes and robust construction systems (in particular, laminated wood and silt-cast composites) as both a pre-festival site of research and a means of hands-on, on-site design exploration, invention, and evolution. Lastly, this paper addresses the relationship between structure and infrastructure in the context of the design-build festival, describing the application of the aforementioned principles and prototypes as implemented in two pavilion-scaled structures—in each case, a site-specific and environmentally-sensitive design—conceived as part of a larger communal infrastructure intended to galvanize resilient, even if temporary, communities of artists, architects, writers, researchers, and musicians during the festivals.2

In an epoch that is characterised by complex, interconnected sustainability problems, architects need new professional capabilities to help forge resilient futures. This research presents an international review of climate action and literacy resources in architecture, across peak industry bodies, as well as associated organisations, accrediting bodies, and independent action groups. We reviewed a total of 45 examples of climate action and literacy in architecture, found on websites throughout organisations in the US, Europe and the UK, and Australia. Qualitative Comparative Analysis was used to examine how these action types emerged, how they compare, and how they are being implemented.

The frameworks illuminate the nature and emergence of the concept of ‘climate literacy’ as it relates to architecture. Defined as “the ability to understand that all life is shaped by climate and the role earth’s systems play … to address the social and physical ramifications of a warming climate” (Cooper et al., 2019, p. 2), climate literacy in architecture calls for cross-disciplinary and cross-sectoral approaches that could fundamentally reshape education and practice. To guide this change, we identified five climate action and literacy resource types: (1) declarations and commitments; (2) mechanisms for action; (3) conceptual frameworks; (4) practical toolkits and guidelines, and (5) professional competencies. The findings of the review also outline the origins of each resource, its target audience, and the key climate literacy themes included. This research highlights the emergence of a common language across architectural practices concerned with the need to both increase climate literacy amongst architecture students, educators, and practitioners, and to imagine alternative futures for the profession. It is anticipated that this review will assist architects in practice and academia to navigate rapidly evolving knowledge domains to support necessary climate literacy in architecture for the 21^st Century.

This paper will discuss a collection of recent collaborative projects using GPS-guided robotics to fabricate temporary spatial prototypes at 1:1 scale. Results from this ongoing research, conducted under the working title of “Drawing Fields,” include a temporary performance space (fig. 1), a new urban mural (fig. 2) and a sprawling labyrinth (fig.3). Drawing Fields utilizes semi-autonomous GPS-guided field marking robots originally developed to mark sports fields to create architectural-scale drawings. This large-scale applied research is made possible through a unique interdisciplinary collaboration from a most unexpected field: turf management. Originally designed to reduce field installation times for sports directors, these pioneering semi-autonomous painting robots bring novel digital fabrication out of the lab, engaging public stakeholders and producing installations with zero waste. Each drawing is produced with environmentally-friendly VOC-free temporary marking paint, and thus eschews the waste typically associated with temporary architecture.  In the last twenty years, one of the most significant shifts in design education is the rise of digital fabrication and its attendant shifts on design pedagogy. While the use of robotic fabrication technologies has flourished in academic settings, faculty researchers are often challenged to “scale up” their efforts towards greater impact and engagement. Further, advanced fabrication systems typically limit user interaction to experts. The public often experiences the results of fabrication processes, but the opportunity to directly interact with advanced space making machinery is limited. Our work in partnership with “off-the-shelf” robotic marking robots works to alter this paradigm. We work as intermediaries between highly-trained experts (roboticists, engineers, geodetic scientists) and general consumers (turf managers, athletes, community groups). At this intersection, we are able to promote the architect as a collaborator who operates in the medium of design, both as an “expert” and a “generalist.”  Our work begins with questions of how these fabrication performances will engage multiple audiences. In the context of this conference, we see huge potential for expanding this research to engage practicing architects and clients in the creation of new visual landscapes. This unique process allows experts and so-called “non-experts” to interact on a more level playing field. The radical act of scaling a drawing to 1:1 removes typical barriers of entry for users. At 1:1 scale, users of all backgrounds and expertise can meaningfully contribute and participate in an architectural drawing. These projects are not permanent spaces, but temporary landscapes ideal for community-based collaboration and experimentation

This essay will explore novel drawing conventions to create water-centric mappings of the sea. The oceans are critical sites for climate change research and discourse, and this essay will contribute to the expanded futures dialogue by addressing the intersection of climate change with the history of oceanography, contemporary ocean monitoring, and emerging digital tools. Currently, the European Commission is leading an effort to produce a Digital Twin of the Ocean. This project will provide a near-live depiction of the sea, and it seeks to address climate change by empowering decision makers with interactive tools to make predictions and unfettered access to data. We will analyze and critique the way that oceanographic information is being gathered and visually communicated to inform drawing conventions that better represent the space of the sea. Historically, the oceans were considered a space of mobility, and the seas were depicted with graphic devices that abstracted and emphasized its material differences from land. Trade routes and waterborne figures suggested the activities and realities that took place at sea. Later maps of the sea were embedded with data on the tides, water depth, ecology, and meteorological conditions like temperature, barometric pressure, wind speed, and wind direction. While knowledge of the oceans has greatly expanded, the seas continue to be rendered with existing cartographic conventions. This project repurposes architectural conventions to make water-centric sectional drawings of the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans to understand the limits of our knowledge of the sea. We started by taking section cut lines through the equator and directed the view towards the south pole. Next, we vertically exaggerated and simplified the Earth’s surface to expand the space of the sea and to create a more legible profile of the seafloor. The planetary projection suggests the connectivity between oceans even though the continents visually separate the water bodies. These conventions depict the oceans as traversable solid figures and occupiable liquid mediums. In creating the Digital Twin of the Ocean, readings from every ocean monitoring program will be coalesced into one database. We comprehensively mapped each hydrographic station, floating buoy, and submerged float—which are designed to drift only at 1000m—between the tropics with a dot, and we further emphasized the devices within 1 degree of the equator with a heavier point and included information on their country of origin. The sections demonstrate that the live monitoring of the sea remains scattered and restricted to two planes, and these drawings reveal the limitations in existing ocean observation. This project will continue to explore drawing conventions and representations of the sea that emphasize what is yet to be or cannot be accurately observed in order to understand what information is necessary to make informed decisions to address climate change

Over the past couple of decades, buildings have been identified as contributors to the negative environmental impacts worldwide [1]. Being responsible for 40% of carbon emissions [2], with 56% of all energy use going to air conditioning and ventilation in hot-humid climates [3]. As energy consumption due to the excessive use of active mechanical systems increases, passive cooling strategies, such as cross-ventilation, have become a reliable alternative. However, designing for cross ventilation is no easy feat, as it requires architects and designers to study in detail the building context as it will affect airflow movement across the site. As buildings rely increasingly on complex mechanical systems, the use of environmental simulations has become crucial, however it has increased in complexity, which can be overwhelming to a design professional not trained in comprehensive environmental modeling. Airflow simulations are studied by the branch of fluid mechanics called Computer Fluid Dynamics (CFD). These simulations although effective, are not used as often in architectural settings, primarily due to time constraints. Their application involves a complex setup process that requires great expertise and has long run-times due to the large amount of data calculations being executed; in addition to the expensive computer hardware required. Cloud-based simulation systems have become prevalent substitutes to traditional in-house CFD simulations.  However, with recent technological advances, computer scientist have been able to perform complex mathematical calculations, quicker, more efficiently and accurately than ever before with the development of machine learning algorithms. These machine learning models, consist of training a computer over thousands of simulations, in which later it can be given unknown information and based on the information presented on its training, generate a new prediction. Due to the increasing popularity of these algorithms these have begun to make their way to the architectural field. The use of artificial neural networks (ANN) and generative adversarial networks (GAN) have been primarily applied to daylighting simulations, such as the work of DaylightGAN by Layout5 [4]. During the initial design stages is the phase where significant changes can be performed to drastically improve the cross ventilation of a building. Therefore, this study aims to apply existing generative machine learning algorithms to compute CFD wind velocity simulations to significantly shorter run times while maintaining a relatively high accuracy level. In order to test the proposed hypothesis that machine learning can be used as a method to produce rapid and acceptable results for airflow CFD simulations in the early design stages, multiple machine learning models were created, trained, and tested. The evaluation metrics consisted of using different image similarity methods to evaluate the accuracy of the images produced by the machine learning model compared to their CFD engine counterparts. In addition, run times between the CFD engine and the trained machine learning model were recorded and compared. These results obtained indicate that GAN application for CFD airflow predictions can produce acceptable results showing a significant run time difference of over a minute between the CFD simulation and the machine learning model.

Following the second World War, Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry began an aggressive planting campaign to address the country’s reconstruction. To enhance the productivity of national forests, huge amounts of cedars were planted due to their quick and resilient growth, replacing the native broad-leaf species in many areas.  Simultaneously, Japan’s cultural connection to cedar as a building material waned as the country continued to westernize, and eased regulations on imported lumber reduced the country’s self-sufficiency rate of timber use to 18% by the turn of the century (Sugimoto 2007).  Over time, vast amounts of abandoned tree plantations have grown too dense, blocking sunlight for smaller plants that contribute to healthy biodiversity.  This has resulted in increased risk of landslides, increased pollen, and changes to the ecosystem as excessive nitrogen in the soil due to human activity washes into rivers and ponds causing algal blooms as the smaller plants are not present to absorb it (Ru and Chiwa 2021). The forests surrounding Hida, a town in Gifu, Japan known historically as an epicenter of traditional carpentry, joinery and craft, are facing these challenges. When rice was the tax, and since Hida is too mountainous to grow enough to contribute, local carpenters were instead commissioned to build temples and shrines throughout Japan. These mountains are also steep and receive heavy snow, often bending younger trees at their trunk under the load.  The tree will continue to grow with a curve, making its lumber difficult to harvest and process within standard industrialized processes.  Within this context, this paper presents recent collaborative efforts that address these issues by developing new mixed-reality (MR) fabrication workflows with local craftspeople to utilize large-scale nemagari (bent-root) timber.  Nemagari is typically avoided, but when harvested out of necessity, are reduced to chips or firewood due to their shape. The material remains underutilized as their natural geometry is considered a downgrade in standardized milling operations (Amtsberg et.al 2020).  Instead, the research discussed in this paper explores how MR can be leveraged to enhance the skill of the craftsperson with real-time holographic guides.  The holograms enable the efficient processing of large and unwieldy logs into precisely constructed architectural elements, making use of their natural curvature that would otherwise be a hindrance to manual, CNC, and robotic fabrication techniques. Construction from an inventory where no-two parts are exactly alike necessitates new tools for visualizing the design intent and for accurately cataloging the exact shape of the logs (Lok and Bae 2022).  LiDAR scanning, a crucial component to the discussed MR workflow, is used to verify the accuracy and fitment of each processed log, prior to and following each chainsaw cut, so that the holographic guides for subsequent parts may be quickly adjusted as necessary.  The context, goals, and current results of this research trajectory closely align with the “expanded futures” track of this conference. The paper aims to contribute to this discussion by sharing thoughts on resilient workflows that bridge technological epistemologies (both manual and digital) and connect faraway, interdisciplinary collaborators.

188 million tons of waste were generated in the construction and demolition of buildings within the United States in 2018, the equivalent of 18,600 Eiffel Towers.1 Retail and commercial spaces contribute significantly to this due to rapid turnover,  only 4.5 years for retail interior fit-outs2 and 7.8 years for commercial fit-outs,3 which are significantly shorter lifespans than most other project typologies as well as most standard product warranties. Our linear economy has provided an enormous reserve of materials that could potentially be “mined” and directly reused in several projects over their useful life, but we currently do not have the means to easily estimate material reuse potential and feasibility. Our collaborative research team of academic researchers and practitioners developed a useful tool that evaluates potential reuse by quantifying amounts and analyzing various technical, economical, and environmental factors that impact reuse decisions. The tool identifies the reuse potential of individual materials and the project as a whole by referencing manufacturers’ material, manufacturing, performance, warranty, and installation data. It estimates cost and technical performance at the time of reuse by using straight line and declining balance depreciation models. This allows architects, contractors, and clients to objectively evaluate the reuse potential while being cognizant of the number of years a material can realistically remain in use. The tool has been tested through a variety of retail and commercial fit-out case studies focused on technical feasibility, available volume/quantities, environmental impact, and market value. Our results have led to a series helpful observations and recommendations regarding prioritization of commonly used materials within retail and commercial environments. For example, we have identified surprisingly high wastage among commonly used materials due to conventional design decisions such as centering ceiling and floor tiles in each room, the overprivileged use of ‘recyclable’ over ‘recycled’ content, and the difficulties gathering certain kinds of data. We plan to continue this work by comparing our estimates against material tracking of completed deconstruction projects. Researchers, owners, practitioners, manufacturers ,and contractors will find this research useful for several reasons. Other researchers working on circular construction can compare our methods to other emergent tools and build upon our approach by introducing additional factors or using the tool for other building types. Owners can capitalize on the benefits of circularity between existing and new projects within their portfolio. Practitioners can use the tool to make informed design decisions that help minimize construction waste and plan for reuse. Manufacturers can consider ways of adjusting their content, installation instructions, and warranties to bolster direct reuse capability. Contractors may increase their profits by establishing material priorities based on financial considerations. Ultimately we hope this work plays a part in producing significantly less waste for retail and commercial interior fit-outs, which may serve as a model for other building project types with slower metabolism.

The city of Montréal is one of many cities worldwide who strive to cut the amount of waste they generate and advance towards zero waste in an effort to meet the Paris Agreement goals. Construction, renovation, and demolition (CRD) waste is a major contributor to urban waste streams but also an area where innovative waste management approaches could deliver significant reductions in waste. One such promising approach is that of circular economy which envisions a resilient future where CRD waste is designed-out of the built environment by keeping construction materials in use. This research project seeks to minimize CRD waste by answering two questions: (1) Which circular economy principles and methods could be effective in ensuring sustainable CRD material management for Montréal; and (2) What kind of stakeholder partnerships are necessary to advance towards zero CRD waste? These questions are in keeping with key principles outlined in Montréal’s master plan “Montréal, objectif zéro déchet”, to guide and enable CRD waste recovery. These principles involve (1) stimulating a circular economy and (2) mobilizing relevant stakeholders. To advance these principles, accessible and reliable data on the current status of CRD waste in Montréal is necessary. However, existing, and emerging literature in the area of circular waste management within the context of Montréal is typically siloed, disconnected and fragmented making it difficult to access and therefore, to assist with informed, evidence-based decision-making. This paper presents a series of methods used to collect and organize data towards advancing circular thinking within CRD material management decision-making in Montreal and mobilizing engagement with the relevant data. Relevant data entails: i) identifying the materials most pertinent to Montréal CRD waste stream, ii) ascertaining quantities of these materials by weight, iii) understanding the organizational structures and processes of CRD production and management, iv) compiling research and precedents on novel circular methods used in the building sector to tackle CRD waste recovery. Data collection occurs through a variety of methods. Firstly, a detailed literature review is carried out investigating scholarly articles; grey literature; reports from building sector professional bodies as well as governments. Secondly, a series of surveys and semi-structured interviews are carried out with policymakers, architects, contractors, end-of-life contractors, waste haulers, reuse organizations, developers, citizen groups and CE experts. Collecting and analyzing this information from various viewpoints, allows us to generate a series of scenarios for rethinking CRD waste comparing landfill, down-cycling, and up-cycling and investigating opportunities to integrate key circular design principles in an aim to close the resource loop. Collected data are mapped to the internationally recognized United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) framework in an aim to provide globally significant methodologies which cities worldwide can use to showcase contributions to the UN SDGs. Advancing towards zero CRD waste in Montréal will require the input of multiple stakeholders. The work presented in this paper is part of a larger research effort which works to deliver an initial but vital first step in the collection, integration, and dissemination of data towards a circular, more sustainable, built environment.

There is an urgent need to restore forests and mitigate severe wildfire risk across much of the American West. Left untreated, overstocked forests often escalate benign, low-severity fires to catastrophic megafires, which endanger lives and cause damage to health, commerce, developed areas, and the forest ecosystem. Treatment involves the removal of small diameter, low value wood for which there is little or no market.[i] Current treatment practices are carbon intensive, with mechanical thinning generating slash piles that release CO2 (via decomposition or burning).[ii] In time, promising large-scale solutions like mass timber supply chains, bioenergy facilities with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), and biochar facilities may create demand for small diameter wood removals. However, the need to remove low value wood is urgent, and the lack of funding for forest health treatment means that large areas of high-risk forests remain unaddressed. Slash storage in “carbon vaults” offers a low cost and practicable method for reducing wildfire risk, storing carbon, generating revenue from carbon markets, and creating feedstock inventory for future wood-based industries. This is a viable solution to reduce atmospheric levels of CO2 – a tool in the collective effort to address climate change. This conference presentation will share work from a funded project called “carbon vaults” in a lab that focuses on carbon containment via large scale wood biomass storage. The research team has designed a series of carbon vaults to cover and protect wood from decay by fire, insects, and fungal organisms. The vault designs take a variety of forms such as fire-tested dowel-laminated timber sheds and wooden shipping containers, earth berms constructed with mass timber, sewage sludge ash, and cob, and engineered burial chambers. Vault prototyping began in Fall of 2021 and will reach mid-stage completion in July 2022. Research Objectives include: –      Testing various carbon vault designs using locally-sourced materials in key research sites with partners. –      Conducting fire, strength, and durability tests on the materials used to construct vaults. Experiments will fill key knowledge gaps in the areas of materials science and structural technology, and allow the project to obtain necessary certifications to proceed with construction in fire-prone forests.[iii] –      Quantitatively determining biomass decomposition rates of wood stored in vaults compared to baseline rates, and optimizing structures to slow decomposition over predetermined intervals (<10 years, >10 years, permanent storage). –      Adapting or developing a carbon offset methodology to issue bona fide credits for vault-based storage. –      Modeling carbon storage over time to optimize returns from carbon offset crediting and the eventual sale of stored wood to biofuels or biomaterials producers. Primary investigators on this project are collaborating across three Universities, and team members include the disciplines of architecture, forestry, ecology, finance, and mining. The team is also working closely with federal entities under contract to thin 50 million acres of overstocked forests as wildfire treatment in the next decade (see Rhode Island scale figure for reference).

Given that nearly 40% of greenhouse gas emissions are from the building and construction sector, continued research into renewable building materials such as insulating mycelium bricks [1], hempcrete [2], or mass timber [3] became a priority in the architectural fields.  For architects to develop viable materials that will be adopted by the building and construction sectors, feasibility must be demonstrated at the performance, production, and environmental scales; in other words how do they function, how are they made, and if adopted, what will their larger impacts be?  In this paper we propose and demonstrate an interscalar approach to design research for new materials.  As a case study, we examine the feasibility of non-corroding natural fiber composite reinforcing bars for cementitious materials. A significant portion of America’s infrastructure was made with reinforced concrete at a time when little attention was given to issues of durability [4].  These structures are nearing the end of their service life and trillions of dollars will be spent in the next decade to repair and maintain their operation [5].  Reinforced concrete is a composite material consisting of roughly 20% cement, 78% aggregate, and 2% steel reinforcing, and it is responsible for 4%-8% of the world’s carbon dioxide output [6].  While the volume of the steel reinforcing is small, if corrosive solids develop upon the steel, the entire reinforced concrete assembly will fail [7].  Steel is commonly recycled, [8] but the concrete, and all of the cement, sand, and energy that went into making it, is lost.  Commercially available solutions are imperfect in that they can be easily damaged, incompatible with all concrete, or prohibitively expensive [9][10]. This research, conducted as part of a post-professional architectural program, investigated the viability of a non-corroding composite rebar made from natural fibers and thermoplastics utilizing an interscalar approach.  At the performance scale, structural performance considers how the tensile strength, elasticity, and interfacial bonding properties compare to commercially available rebar.  Results indicate that a natural fiber composite (NFC) made with a 44%-50% fiber ratio of flax has the same strength as steel and the same elasticity of GFRP.  At the production scale, the process of comminingling, consolidation, and fabrication of raw material into final reinforcement was explored.  Preliminary experiments indicate that “jacketing” the natural fibers with thermoplastic during the commingling stage resulted in the best fiber saturation at the consolidation stage of production.   Finally, at the environmental scale, this research considers how the adoption of natural fiber composite reinforcing could streamline design workflows, improve the job site productivity, and extend the service life of reinforced concrete thereby minimizing greenhouse gas emissions.  Results indicate that an NFC made with PLA demands 49%-50% less embodied energy of GFRP, regardless of the choice of fiber material. Translating design research into building practice necessitates a holistic approach that considers multiple perspectives.  This interscalar methodology is a valuable framework for research into next generation renewable building materials and systems.