Resilient Design: Mitigating Trepidation About Environmental Disasters

Abstract

As our environment grows increasingly unstable and our awareness of a new breed of natural disasters weighs heavily on our collective consciousness, the anxiety resulting from our vulnerability within the changing world has been elevated. While design works towards adapting to our contemporary ecological challenges, alternative approaches that prioritize not only the systems and material considerations relevant to sustainability but the needs of our psychological condition must be considered. Such an approach, therefore, must expand the application of emotional design in fostering desire, love, attachment, and functionality, in the promotion of mental and emotional wellbeing. This paper investigates these ideas through a case study involving the development of speculative furniture designs. The artifacts proposed employ empathy, humor, creativity, and play in an aim to foster resilience around seismic events, and offers a timely precedent in support of sustainable design practice through the development of meaningful and durable design relationships.