Resilience: The ability to recover readily from illness, depression, adversity, or the like; buoyancy. That’s what the dictionary says. More importantly though, as climate begins to change and the natural world bombards us with more and more challenges, how will we design our living systems to take these new challenges in stride? Resiliency and Sustainability are two terms we have begun to hear very often especially in building circles, but resiliency often gets replaced with redundancy. Resilience.org has a lot to say about the topic, so I’ll let them be your guide:
Author Archives: Chris
Resilient Architecture
Archangel Ancient Tree Archive
Imagine if the great trees of the East Coast had not been completely cut down in the name of profit and westward expansion? What if there were trees over one thousand years old all around us? What if we could help reverse what has happened to our great forests?
Archangel Ancient Tree Archive‘s mission is to preserve what’s left of the world’s ancient forests by planting baby versions of the remaining magnificent trees all around the world. These trees are the most resilient living things on the planet, so they will help to reverse deforestation at the same.
Wild Treehouses in Oregon
Robert Harvey Oshatz designs some wild residences, and these two treehouses in Oregon are just too awesome not to share!
Hobbitat Tiny Homes
With the same passions and roots, but a bit more funky than Tumbleweed’s houses; Hobbitat has plenty of creativity to go around. For some tiny inspiration, head over to their website…
Think Big, Live Small
Tiny Houses
In our current society, everyone places too much value on their personal belongings. We build bigger houses to fit all of our stuff into and we are using energy to heat and cool those posessions. When you pare down what you need down to the bare essentials for daily life and then design your home for only daily life, then what you find is that you need a lot less space.
There are several benefits to living smaller.
- Home costs much less so you can pay it back in a resonable amount of time.
- Energy costs are drastically reduced or eliminated.
- The finishes in your home could be of a lot higher quality.
- You wouldn’t have to dread moving day.
- When your expenses are reduced, your house and therefore your job wouldn’t have to tie you down.
- You could afford to rent larger spaces when having a party or have it outside.
- Connection with the natural environment is enhanced.
- Impact on the planet is reduced.
There are a lot more benefits, just ask any 19th century Transcendentalist, early 20th century Arts & Crafts designer, or Tumbleweed Tiny Houses; they all say it better than I.
The Double Envelope Passive Solar Home
The double envelope passive solar house concept is explained well by Enertia here. The double envelope can obviously be expensive and I believe that is why it has a hard time being adopted as a mainstream building technique, but it can drastically cut energy bills if done correctly. Using the sun as a heat pump and fan while taking advantage of massive walls and southern windows make for a very efficient home indeed.
Magical Dome House built for $8000
Dr. Suess would be very proud. Amazing details! Imagine living in such a wild structure!
The Greater Stonehenge Ecovillage
Located just outside the city limits of Charlottesville lies a six acre parcel of land next to the aging Stonehenge Neighborhood; its gentle south-facing slope and existing structures make it the perfect place for something quite a bit different from a typical subdivision: The Greater Stonehenge Ecovillage. Please check out the newest plan, and tell us what you think!
See the details here on The Housing Lab or The Greater Stonehenge Website
Creating Community in Pocket Neighborhoods
Ever wonder why certain neighborhoods become desirable? It’s not the houses, it’s the way they make us interact with each other.
This isn’t a new concept, but I wish it were more widespread. When will developers realize that you are supposed to build neighborhoods for people, not automobiles? Here’s what Zillow has to say on the topic.
Off the Grid Villages
A Post Consumer Society? Off the grid villages? Getting tired of the rat race? Check out this article on Mother Nature Network
Henry David Thoreau called: he wants his house back










