Future Towns Magazine: disaster management acrhitecture, research and news.

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WHO YOU GONNA CALL?

FLOOD PROOF HOUSE

SUPER SAND

SAHARA FOREST

NEW SHELTER AFTER

DISASTER COURSE

THE DEBT CRISIS

IN 7 SENTENCES

JOBS AND GROWTH

VS ENVIRONMENT

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The War Footing: The Race to Deal with Climate Change

The Financial Crisis in Seven Sentences.

Despite valiant efforts from the BBC's Robert Peston the debt crisis sweeping the world is still unfathomable to most people. I try and and some it up in as fewer sentences as possible.

Shelter After Disaster Course Offered.

Oxford Brookes offers a new PG Cert in Shelter After Disaster, after calls from the humanitarian community for more architecture and engineering professionals trained for the role .

Jobs and Growth Vs Environment.

As Canada pulls out of Kyoto, is putting climate change ahead of jobs and growth well overdue?

New Partners

We are seeking academic partners to fund and expand the information we hope to carry. Please write, email or call us, if you would like more information.

News

Future Towns Magazine (FTM) is a new disaster management and awareness online magazine. We aim to cover the full range of issues including the latest architecture and engineering technology, finance and political coverage.

Journalists Wanted

We are seeking volunteers to work as journalists for FTM. If you are an academic who has an issue or story you would like to write about, or an architect or engineer with a story please do get in touch.

ABOUT

Ben Bamber - Publisher.Ben is a journalist who has worked within the building industry press for about ten years. He has had an interest in disaster management for many years and feels strongly that the subject needs wider coverage and hopes to contribute to the struggle to get good information out to a wider audience.

Future Towns Limited.Future Towns is a disaster architectural and social research company focusing on disaster proof housing at all scales, budgets and environments.

Published Work.Ben has worked for Green Building Magazine, Building and Homebuilding and Renovating, among many other publications. Please visit www.futuretowns.org.uk/publishedwork.php for the full list.
TESTIMONIALS

Case Study 1

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MAGAZINE

Who You Gonna Call

PUBLISHED: 20/06/11

Who You Gonna’ Call? The Institutions We Turn to in a Crisis

Disaster Research Centre – Delaware University – Founded in 1963 - The Center was the first in the world devoted to the social scientific study of disasters.

There has always been a split between politicians and science. Politicians go for what is politically expedient, to the public vote, the press and big business, whereas science goes where the evidence leads them. Sometimes they converge but usually only by accident. For example it was pretty easy for Thatcher to target ozone layer stripping chemicals in the ban on CFC’s. It is not so easy to ban the use of fossil fuels given their huge influence on the global economy, running transportation, delivering electricity to homes and businesses and being used as a base for a lot of products, particularly plastics. Japanese Tsunami.When the Japanese tsunami struck this year I watched closely as the media sought out experts to explain what was happening and what might happen in the future. I don’t think I heard from or saw the same expert twice. There are a lot of disaster prone regions around the world and each of them has a range of academic centres which provide the best technology and the best analysis they can. So in my search for the top institutions, this proved quite difficult. In the end I decided to look at a cross section, rather than a top ten. The other problem is dividing up the institutions in terms of what kind of disaster they might know a lot about, but also what end of a disaster they might consult on. For example there are centres which focus on prediction, others that focus on the aftermath, and those that focus on people, managing the outflow of refugees for example and there are those that study what has happened (after the fact) and why. Also if Japan focuses on earthquake technology in all its forms, then the experts in New Orleans might focus on flood protection and prevention instead. There are very few institutions that cover the full range of every type and aspect of disasters. Regional Support.For example the Duryog Nivaran agency, provides a regional support to a group of countries, including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka. This group manages cross border disaster management and relief. Theirs is mostly a humanitarian role. ALNAP (The Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance), on the other hand collects information from other key academic institutions and looks at the very latest information on managing disasters. It is a purely academic network which attempts to gain a larger, macro view of what studies, experiences on the ground and developmental technologies and methods are being employed and then updates the other academics in their study group. The aid community, also works closely with the science community to deliver new understanding to actual events, particularly around helping survivors and dealing with the dead. For example DNA had to be taken from the dead in the Indonesian tsunami to identify bodies. However, because much of the dead were poor, there were no DNA samples to match dead relatives to the living ones. So the survivors also had to have DNA samples taken in a painstaking process that took a long time. But the other aspect of large disasters is what to do with the dead. Many people believe that dead bodies are a source of serious disease, like cholera, which became a problem in the Haitain earthquake. However, it has now been established that the dead do not pose a threat in this way. This kind of knowledge is vital in the aftermath of disasters. The space agency NASA and the others, of course play a vital role in understanding and dealing with environmental catastrophes. The use of satellite technology provided a macro view, but not only of Earth. The sun plays such a pivotal role and the stuff that happens around Earth, which influences weather patterns, down here. There are magnetic fields that are flung right out into space around the Earth that protect us from the extremes of the sun and other radiation sources, which may affect humanity from time to time. One of the very first academic institutions to study disasters, was the Disaster Research Centre at Delaware University. Founded in 1963, this institution was the first to study Earth science information to determine the earthquake risk to various regions around the world. However, predicting Earthquakes is notoriously difficult. Up-to-date information is of course vital and there are several organisations that feed into live situations or disasters that are showing signs of an imminent arrival. NASA do this, but also The US Geological Survey and organisations like Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Response Association (DERA). And lastly there are organisations that develop building technology to cope with disasters when they hit. And this is a key part of humanity relationship with disasters. It is our buildings, which we will most likely be in when a disaster strikes, and it is buildings which will most likely kill us as well. CUREE is one of those organisations. CUREE is a co-operative of the best earthquake engineering university institutions and regularly co-operates on a full range of projects. They share knowledge, funding and academic excellence, to design and sometimes to construct buildings with earthquakes being re-produced in laboratory conditions, to study how and why buildings fail or survive. When Disasters Strike - Governments React...too late?The disaster management community is one with many aspects and often ignored by government until a disaster strikes. It is largely under funded, unless a particular government sits in a disaster prone region and even then there have to be regular contact with disasters to sustain that funding. The dissemination of up-to-date and relevant information, the scientific understanding of disasters, the rescue and the delivering of aid to survivors, and the prevention of high casualty rates when disasters strike, requires a highly sophisticated level of co-operation between government, the military, aid groups, and academics, which is expensive and complex. But when disasters do come, this co-operation can rise to the challenge or collapse almost completely. We have a long way to go.

US Geological Survey - The USGS is a science organisation that provides impartial information on the health of our ecosystems and environment, and natural hazards.

Red Cross/Red Crescent Climate Centre. This organisation provides strategies for environmental events related climate change.

CUREE is a group of university engineering department and institutions who co-operate to produce and share research on earthquake engineering.

The Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance (ALNAP) is an organisation that brings together the key academics and organisations to share up-to-date information on managing disasters.

Jobs and Growth Jobs and Growth Verses Environment and Climate Change."We believe that a new agreement that will allow us to generate jobs and economic growth represents the way forward." Peter Kent – Prime Minister of Canada on withdrawing from the Kyoto Protocol. America, China and India have all made their positions clear on climate change: it is a secondary concern to jobs and economic growth. And in the last week or so, Canada has added its voice, withdrawing from Kyoto. But as many others have demonstrated, not only is economic growth possible, whilst reducing emissions, but it will also aid growth to focus on emissions reductions. Canada is one of 32 nations that signed up to Kyoto and the fact is these countries have reduced emissions by 7.5% as compared to 1990 levels¹. Essentially, Kyoto was a successful agreement, a successful plan, that produced the results it was seeking. However, there is a second tougher stage to Kyoto, which was supposed to have been agreed at Durban last week. The US never ratified the agreement, but then they never ratify any agreements on anything –- the rule of Empire applies. And given that the US is increasingly challenged for its title of the richest, most powerful nation on Earth, it will find itself less and less able to stand alone.The bigger nations just won’t sign up to an emissions reduction agreement, because they mistakenly believe that economic growth without polluting isn’t possible. And Canada, now able to access vast oil wealth is wary of going green and is frightened of missing out on the economic benefits of oil. If a carbon neutral economy is pushed too hard and too quickly the value of the oil deposits it can now get access to won’t be as high – or so you might think. The fact is there will still be an oil market, whatever happens. The short sightedness of Canada and others is a great shame. However, it is the death of nations caused by climate change, that these giants should be concerned about. Legacies like these don'’t rub off very easily.The island of Tuvalu is one such nation: "For a vulnerable country like Tuvalu, it'’s an act of sabotage on our future," Ian Fry, Tuvalu's lead negotiator told Reuters. "Withdrawing from the Kyoto Protocol is a reckless and totally irresponsible act." – commenting on Canada recent decision.At Durban the EU nations that have achieved and surpassed their Kyoto commitments, got together in a voting bloc, with the Alliance of Small Island States (Aosis) along with the most vulnerable [to climate change] nations, like Bangladesh, to push the other bigger nations to agree to a deal. The fact that these nations face being wiped off the map, isn'’t lost on the other nations sitting around the table, but they still won’t change their stance. The can has been kicked to 2015-2020, to come back for another crack at it.For a long time now I have lost faith in the ability of world leaders to come to an agreement on climate change and this is a key part of the global leadership crisis, that is emerging, which includes among other things the global financial crisis (see articles in our supplement The War Footing). Even Ban ki Moon has walked away from direct involvement in negotiations. Instead he plans to focus on developing technology and supporting funds to assist nations to switch energy production from carbon to renewable, after the mess at the Copenhagen talks which collapsed without agreement earlier this year.To focus entirely on economic growth as the driver for all other human activities, is a dangerous and rather pointless process. It neglects the social needs of most of the world'’s population and those that have tried to do this, namely Britain and the US have been left with a young population without any real definitive purpose in life, unable to learn and take an active role in society. We should be focusing on creating a successful society rather than just a successful economy. Leaders around the globe believe that to create a rich nation is the same as creating a successful society -– that one follows on from the other. The key to both, is to focus attention on the parts of society that work well and develop them, whilst creating functional communities. Using wealth and taxes to direct development and then to call this modernisation, is nonsense. If the larger nations unwilling to yield at climate talks, put climate ahead of jobs and growth, jobs and growth would emerge from those efforts in the longer term and only now is the time to do this. In fact investing to avoid climate change now, may well be the economic answer we are all seeking², not in 2020, when every scientist worth his salt, is saying it will definitely be too late. 1. The Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR).2. See The Stern Review.
The 37 Kyoto Nations and their performance in reducing emissions (in % increase or decrease).• Australia – (+8)• Austria – (-8)• Belgium – (-8)• Bulgaria – (-8)• Canada – (-6)• Croatia – (-5)• Czech Republic – (-8)• Denmark – (-8)• Estonia – (-8)• European Community - (-8)• Finland - (-8)• France - (-8)• Germany - (-8)• Greece - (-8)• Hungary – (-6)• Iceland – (+10)• Ireland - (-8)• Italy - (-8)• Japan – (-6)• Latvia - (-8)• Liechtenstein - (-8)• Lithuania - (-8)• Luxembourg - (-8)• Monaco - (-8)• Netherlands – (-6)• New Zealand - 0• Norway – (+1)• Poland – (-6)• Portugal - (-8)• Romania - (-8)• Russian Federation - 0• Slovakia - (-8)• Slovenia - (-8)• Spain - (-8)• Sweden - (-8)• Switzerland - (-8)• Ukraine - 0• Great Britain - (-8)• United States of America – (-7)1. The numbers above are given as a percentage compared to 1990, where the 1990 emissions level is indexed as 100. However, for the purposes of keeping things simple the figures are shown as plus or minus figures in percentage terms, from 1990 levels. Zero figures show no change in emissions since 1990.2. The emissions targets include all six major greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and three synthetic substitutes for ozone-depleting CFCs that are highly potent and long-lasting in the atmosphere.Figures obtained from: http://green.wikia.com/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol

Oxford Brookes

PUBLISHED: 16/09/11

Oxford Brookes Turns its Attention to Shelter After Disaster.

The issue of shelter after disaster creates a massive problem for survivors, aid agencies and governments alike, as they struggle to re-house people who have lost or had to abandon their homes. In the 2010 floods in Pakistan an unprecedented 1.6 million homes were destroyed. And in Haiti, Burma and other places around the world, mass sudden homelessness is way beyond anything that even the big aid agencies and governments can hope to address.

However following numerous conferences and discussion among first responders, the gap in knowledge and the lack of professionals who can deal with homelessness after disasters, has led to Oxford Brookes University offering a Post Graduate Certificate in Shelter After Disaster. This course will be available for people who already have an architectural or engineering degree or hands on experience in the field as an aid agency worker.

The call for increased knowledge for practitioners, has come from the shelter sector of the various aid agencies, according to course leader Bill Flinn, as well as demand coming from individuals who wish to get into this kind of aid work. The Centre for Development and Emergency Practice (CENDEP), at Oxford Brookes are beginning the course in January 2012, and will offer a 12-week postgraduate certificate which will be equivalent to one third of a Masters degree.

The course will focus on what can be done after a major disaster, but will not focus on designing products which can be delivered to survivors. The temptation for designers would be to design a shelter kit, but Flinn says ‘We wouldn't demonstrate actual specific shelter designs that people can build themselves…but we do teach the importance of understanding good engineering and construction practice.’ He points out that ‘temporary buildings have a bad habit of becoming permanent. Mostly we concentrate on "early recovery" rather than the "emergency" phase so we don't spend much time talking about tents, blankets and camp planning.’ The issue of what kind of shelter to offer and how to get that shelter to as many people as possible, is a difficult one, that generates a great deal of debate within the humanitarian community. And it is that debate which will form part of this new course.

The course is being offered as part of Oxford Brookes University’s Workforce Development scheme which gears courses to identified skills gaps in the UK’s work force. If you’re interested in attending this course, then you can get more information from the following link:

Course details: www.brookes.ac.uk and interested students should contact: pgenquiries.be_brookes.ac.uk or +44 (0)1865 483684.

Pakistan after the 2010 floods.

A hurricane shelter being built.

Sahara Forest

PUBLISHED: 05/08/11

The Sahara Forest Project: The Biomimick.

Since 2007 Michael Pawlyn at Exploration Architects has been working on a pretty unusual project. The Sahara Forest Project is a multi-purpose project designed to reverse desertification and supply a number of combined services to an arid area, including fresh water supply, solar power and food. It can draw moisture from the air and use it to grow crops, create power from solar energy and create soil from waste. It can also collect water for a fresh water supply. It is large, beautiful and designed to give arid regions a chance to change the landscape and bring new opportunities to the people there. As a bi-product it also does reverse desertification. But right now it is only on the drawing board. The whole scheme uses the idea of architecture mimicking nature to produce useful and productive technology.The Seawater Greenhouse.One of the key parts of the plan is a separate project which has been integrated into the scheme. The Seawater Greenhouse is a neat piece of simple technology that draws moisture from the air and grows crops in a cool and well irrigated environment. They say on their website that “The technology imitates natural processes, helping to restore the environment while significantly reducing the operating costs of greenhouse horticulture.” The Seawater Greenhouse is combined with a Concentrated Solar Power array, producing water, electricity and fresh water. It effectively desalinates the sea water, which is normally a much more energy and technology intensive process. The Seawater Greenhouse was developed in the UK in 1991 and has since been trailed across the world in the most extreme climates on Earth. Charlie Paton, the groups founder was an electrician and a lighting engineer for ITV. He now chairs an Australian group who is developing the project, looking to increase water yields and productivity for the Greenhouse. Algae and Halophytes.A secondary source of energy will be biomass. The team is looking at algae and halophytes as a biomass fuel source. Halophytes are being looked at by other groups as a possible bio-diesel. These plants are resistant to salt and are usually found in coastal areas. The Sahara project hopes to grow this stuff and create a source of fuel to compliment the solar energy. Algae however is the bioenergy source that everyone is talking about. The production centres grow plants in tubes, bags or ponds, which then produce algae over time. The algae is then harvested and converted to biofuels for cars and other engines. The solar energy on the other hand, is the concentrated type. Most roof top PV systems would convert direct sunlight only. But the concentrated solar energy pushes all the solar energy into a central hub which is though to be more efficient. Pawlyn says that “It’s becoming clear that when looking at energy production, small scale production doesn’t work and is a waste of time. To produce energy we need those large scale projects.” The Sahara Forest Project is working towards a demonstration project which will be used for real data research and they hope to have this demonstration project completed soon.

The Sahara Forest Project. If you squint your eyes the project looks almost like the Nile, as it winds along the coast with banks of greenery either side.

The Seawater Greenhouse captures moisture in arid regions to grow plants, either crops for food or plants for biofuel.

http://www.exploration-architecture.com/

http://www.seawatergreenhouse.com/

Flood Proof House add-page02

BACA's Flood Proof House

PUBLISHED: 26/06/11

The name '‘flood proof house'’, conjures up images of reinforced bunkers and water tight port holes. But for BACA architects, a research based architectural practice in London, this isn'’t the case at all. They call their designs ‘Water Architecture’ and specialise in flood prone regions and waterside buildings; mainly residential. But essentially their ethos is to work with water, whether flooding or not, rather than against it. It is this ethos that won them the competition to design the $20 million Dordrecht municipality redevelopment. However, BACA designs for all housing needs for water, from floating homes, flood mitigation, housing estates, and waterside redevelopments all over the UK, including Glasgow’s £30 million Canting Basin development. The Floating Concepts development has taken on BACA to help build the scheme, which is planned to be Scotland’s first floating village. Chief Executive David Beard said: “Our development of the canting basin will give the people of Glasgow an opportunity to enjoy the unique experience of coming into close contact with the water and will become a quality centre for eating, drinking, shopping, entertaining and meeting friends, in a contemporary marine environment.” Water Architecture.The research side of things has seen BACA use some tried and tested methods and a few of their own, to show that flood water can be managed safely. In some instances the water is redirected to flood plains, or coursed away from housing. Other times, it is as simple as building up on a bank. For example their designs offer Floating units, Amphibious units, Wetproof resilient units and Dryproof resistant units. In one idea BACA employs an intelligent coded system (see pic) to guide people safely around flooded regions. On their website they say “The public realm is subtly coded with different ground and building surfaces to indicate areas most likely to flood and create intuitive safe pathways, thus avoiding the need for signs.” (Glasgow Evening Times). The Floating units, use space which maybe needed in high density cities, bursting at the seams, such as along the Thames. Amphibious units, would sit in a dry dock which would be used for recreation, unless flooding occurs, in which case the building would float and the recreational area, probably a garden would flood. Wetproof and dryproof systems would be built in areas of low risk of flooding. But when and if a flood does occur, the bottom floors can flood safely and people can escape through carefully designed decks and access/escape points on the upper floods. Also electrical supply would be protected and the flooded floors easy to repair after the flood waters have gone.A Minimum Standard?The full range of flood proof and flood mitigation designs and techniques have not yet entered the public consciousness and are not as yet included in minimum building standards. With increasing pressure on space, increased incidence of flooding and the concerns around sea level rise, during climate change, means that flood mitigation schemes will become more common, more desired by home buyers and more standards will be required in building regulations to manage those schemes. Many early untested flood mitigation designs have and did fail during recent 1 in 100 year, and 1 in 1000 year floods of the last ten years, leaving previously confident homeowners wondering why their flood proof houses failed. More research and more regulation is what’s needed and practices like BACA seem to be leading the UK right now, on a vanguard approach to flood mitigation designs.

Dordecht Masterplan

Coded Guides

During a 1 in 1000 year flood the amphibious and floating homes both raise with the water and the dryproof homes resist it. The ‘water garden courtyards’ are allowed to flood, reducing flooding to other parts of the town. Dry access is maintained to all properties. www.baca.uk.com

Super Sand

PUBLISHED: 06/07/11

Magic Sand at Rice University.

Clean Water and Super Sand.

Far away from the desert communities of Sub-Saharan Africa is a university team who has just released details of a new water purification system, which effectively updates the ancient method of passing water through sand to get clean water. Texas based Rice University researchers have been studying combining carbon filtration with sand filtration. Carbon filtration is far too expensive for poor communities and sand is unreliable and slow. Sand has been used for thousands of years but often fails to strip out heavy metals like mercury or organic containments like various bugs and bacteria. But the Rice University team led by Wei Gao and her colleagues, and funded by Nanoholdings, have created a cheap and effective combination. They add carbon in the same form of it, used for pencils, add it to sand and heat it to 105C. They can then pass contaminated water through this system and clean the water. The method uses the best of both to filter out the large and the smaller contaminants. The carbon coats the sand. Rice University says that ‘The particle size of sand and surface modifications determine the efficiency of sand in removing contaminants from water.’ The process the team has demonstrated is used ‘to coat coarse grains of sand in graphite oxide’ adding that the efficiency at removing contaminants is ‘several times more efficient at removing contaminants than sand alone.’ They ran mercury and a dye through ordinary coarse sand, and found that the sand was saturated with the contaminant with 10 minutes and therefore unusable. With the new super sand, that process to took up to 50 minutes. Because the treatment of the sand with graphite only uses temperatures of 105C, it becomes very cheap to modify the sand. Also, the mining industry produces a lot of waste graphite, making it easy to get hold of. The production of this stuff could offer the developing world easy access to clean water and the team at Rice are optimistic that this product will assist millions of people all over the world. Roughly 50% of people living in sub-Saharan Africa, for example have no access to clean drinking water.

Pic: Jeff Fitlow

Debt Crisis No Frame

The Financial Crisis in Seven Sentences.

If like the rest of us you're a little confused about what the hell is going on in the current financial crisis, I have compiled this flow chart of events, with a little commentary thrown in. If you don't want to know the course of events, then please feel free to scroll to the last slide, and there is the financial crisis in seven sentences - a little like the complete works of Shakespeare in 30 seconds shows that spring up from time to time.Despite the efforts of the world's leaders this crisis isn't going away any time soon. Excarbated by the markets, this whole crisis is one caused primary by a crisis in leadership, both predating the 2007/2008 crash and across sectors, including business leaders, bankers and politicians.

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