Resilience between mitigation and adaptation

Abstract

The relation between architecture and time is the subject of two papers. The first illustrates the variations this relationship can make on the notion of resilience, applying it to architectural design and current experimentations of Design for Disassembly. The second focuses on the important subject of population ageing and on the need to study and develop forward-looking forms of a sustainable elderly-friendly living environment in Bulgaria, suggesting potential directions for future development in the context of a resilient society. Finally, the book includes an essay dealing with the importance of new digital technologies in the transition towards a resilient and sustainable city: the document describes a new design process that allows participants to collaborate with ‘virtual elements’, creating specific dynamic three-dimensional systems capable of self-adapting to constraints and of evolving into new spatial configurations shaped by adaptation. The framework of research, experimentations, projects, interventions, advanced implementation is varied, in ferment and, above all, in constant evolutionary progress. Our era has now become aware of its limits, of the meaning of ‘living in times of crisis’, of the scarcity of available resources, of the need to move in a circular sense, of the seriousness of the threats coming from the climate crisis and the environmental and social emergencies. The term ‘resilience’, once borrowed on tiptoe from the natural and ‘hard’ sciences, is now fully assimilated and key player of action, knowledge and know-how of the disciplines revolving around the intricate and increasingly complex world of contemporary design, building and living. The line is drawn, we are starting to assume ethical responsibilities, the principles, the methods, the operational strategies and the application solutions are emerging, and – by being aware that they can never be definitively codified but rather will have to perpetually regenerate, update, adapt to changing times, conditions, spaces and contexts – we are entering the main road with those who believe in a more desirable future.