Structural Adaptivity Thinking

Here, I would like to explain more extensively my thinking about structural adaptivity as a critical aspect of resilience.  (In researching this subject, I was surprised by the lack of information/ideas conveniently available about the characteristics of adaptivity or adaptability. The following are my own preliminary conceptions.  I hope others will improve upon them.)

 

The world is changing so fast that our government, think tanks, universities and research institutions, business leaders, builders and developers, and “planners” have no hope of being able to keep up with it.  Many thinkers describe our world as actually undergoing rapidly accelerating change.  To be able to plan for the change, or even to be able to react to such transformation while it is happening, we need to do more than just keep up with it.  We need to jump out in front of it.

 

Unfortunately, we just are not smart enough, nor do we, even collectively, have sufficient experience to foresee which, of all the possible troubles or alternative world or national conditions, might come next.  Likewise we are not able to discern how long they will last and what we will need to segue into after that – to be ready again for yet another world, national, or local “situation.”

 Mr. Copernicus said it best:

 

“To know that we know what we know, and to know that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.”  Nicolas Copernicus (1473-1543). 

 

We need to learn how to plan for an ever changing and never predictable world. 

 

We need to employ principles and strategies for cities and regions, and the built environment, which focus on their long-term capacity to adapt, i.e. their “structural adaptivity,” to a continuously changing world.

 

I am convinced that many people in our world will have to come to the point where we value “adaptivity” as one of the most fundamental principles in our lives and in the necessary grounding for our continued survival.  We no longer can hope for specific plans and solutions to meet our problems.

 

The ideas presented for “structural adaptivity” are meant to apply to “structural” objects, i.e. structures, and to their capacity to change or be changed over a short or somewhat moderate length of time.  The terms are meant to be concepts and not supposed to be limited by precise definitions. 

 

By “structural” or “structures”, I mean those substances that make up the framework of a city, or city-region, or an aggregation of urban areas, much like the bones, key organs, and perhaps certain large muscle masses that make up the scaffold of our bodies.  Generally, I can define structures a bit more with the following parameters:

 

(a) Those physical constructs that are built by persons, or persons using machines or other devices, that are attached to the land or have a similarly fixed location.  I mean them to include structures that extend up into the air, structures that extend more or less flat across the land, and structures that are built below the land.  Examples are buildings, streets, sewer lines, etc. 

 

(b)  I further mean to limit it to those physical objects that are fairly expensive, or large, or those things that are built in networks or systems of things that, combined, are expensive or large.  For example, I mean it to include large office buildings or large groups of office buildings but not individual, smaller size office buildings; and I mean it to include large utility systems but not individual, smaller electric/gas/communications lines and facilities.

 

(c)  I mean it to focus on those elements that provide important functions for the built environment and the people living within or nearby.  This includes places to live, work, shop and receive or acquire services, places to congregate, recreate or enjoy, routes of transportation, and facilities/routes for the movement of goods and essential supplies (energy, information, water, etc.).  In such manner, I mean it to center on those physical elements that influence the form of our built environment, elements that attract or generate a pattern for each other and for many smaller items of development.

 

By “adaptivity,” I mean it as a concept, not a term with a precise definition.

 

“I gradually came to be appalled by how little is actually known about adaptivity...  Earnest intellectuals talk bravely about ... ‘preparing people for the future.’  But we know virtually nothing about how to do it.”  Toffler, Alvin.  Future Shock (Bantum Books, 1970), p. 2.

 

It helps me to think of adaptivity in several different dimensions.  Firstly, I think of it as needed to be able to adjust quickly to sudden events and/or to absorb and mediate the negative consequences of sudden events.  By sudden events, I am referring to pandemics, terrorists attacks, natural disasters, and similar. 

 

Secondly, I think of it as needed also for the built environments to be able to change in a way that keeps up with changes in our economy, social conditions, technology offerings, etc. at a moderately-quick progressive rate. 

 

Below I am setting out a list of several possibilities regarding these in order to allow a systematic perspective as it might relate to my proposals.  For example, it illustrates the fact that enabling adaptivity to progressive/increasing changes is often not the same as enabling adaptivity to sudden events.  In fact, I have no doubt that they could be in conflict sometimes.  (This would be a situation where consideration of the general public welfare would be critical, as written about elsewhere in my posts.)

 

It also illustrates the differences between adaptivity at the regional scale and adaptivity at the smaller urban/metropolitan scale.

 

Thirdly, I am using to term to mean the condition of the built environment providing adaptivity to its inhabitants.  This is needed to help deal with the changes and elements of a city or region that are smaller than I am trying to address. 

 

It is also needed to build capacity among the population itself to cope with sudden, potentially disastrous events.  While this paper is intended to address only the adaptivity of the built environment and not the adaptivity of the people, it is the adaptivity of the people that is the most important.  There is one obvious characteristic of the population (but there could be many more) that relates to much of my discussion about the adaptivity of the built environment to potentially disastrous events.  That is the existence and strength of the social condition/phenomena referred to as Community. 

 

By community capacity, I am meaning the capacity of the public to come together in times of potentially disastrous events, to plan and organize their activities, to have proficient communication systems, and to carry out their plan of activities quickly and effectively.  Largely this depends on their existing extent of community belonging, organization and experience.  The built environment is not the key ingredient for this but it plays a role.

 

I hope that the following will help explain.

 

 

LIST OF PERSPECTIVES

 

1) Adaptivity of the regional forms to meet sudden events (sudden changes that we do not/cannot see coming).

 

Example: Rebalancing by watersheds leads to most areas being able to rely on fresh potable water supplies and many other necessities when shortages occur.

 

2) Adaptivity of the major elements within regions to sudden events.

 

Example:  Localization within each region leads to being able to acquire day-to-day goods and services for a moderate length of time.

 

3) Adaptivity of the regional forms to meet progressive future changes (moderately fast changes that, still, we can see coming).

 

Example:  Rebalancing the location of our urban centered regions increases our ability to maintain our economic strength when one or more of them are weakening.

 

4)  Adaptivity of the major elements within regions to meet progressive future changes.

 

Example:  Provides more ability to shift/relocate development away from sea level rises, flooding, earthquake faults, wildfires, etc. (having potential sites; having transportation connections - e.g. to ports, etc.).

 

5)  Adaptivity of the urban forms to meet sudden events.

 

Example:  Open spaces and ample surrounding lands increases ability to house and provide services to large numbers of emergency aid workers and then to re-construction workers and suppliers.

 

6)  Adaptivity of the major elements within urban areas to meet sudden events.

 

Example:  More streets and highways (not limited freeways) in multiple directions allow evacuation of a city/area by multiple routes/modes; being able to access a city/area with emergency services by multiple routes/modes.

 

7)  Adaptivity of the urban forms to meet progressive future changes.

 

Example: Ample open land leads to being able to construct large new buildings/structures/compounds in good locations when they become needed (spaceports, alternative energy generation facilities, etc.).

 

8)  Adaptivity of the major elements within urban areas to meet progressive future changes.

 

Example:  Bus rapid transit leads to being able to adjust the transportation systems and routes as needed if there are increases in tele-workers and home schooling, and can provide for increased needs by the frail and handicapped elderly. 

 

9)  Urban/regional forms to allow more adaptive actions by residents and businesses.

 

Example:  Forms that encourage more equal urban sizes (as opposed to ever increasingly large magalopoli) are more conducive to building intra-community relationships.

 

10)  Major elements to allow more adaptive actions by residents and businesses.

 

Example:  Removing/softening urban walls and barriers help ability to mobilize citizen activities quickly.

 

Additionally:  Most of the above can and should apply also to rural areas, forestlands, conservation areas, and similar.

 

 

Another way to look at structural adaptivity is to consider some of the characteristics that one might find in the form and qualities/characteristics of structures that give them the most adaptivity.  They most likely would include:

 

SOME STRUCTURAL ADAPTIVITY CHARACTERISTICS

 

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Development/Structure Sizes – with somewhat smaller structures or networks of smaller structures normally having greater capacity to change or be changed.

 

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Development/Structure Locations – with structures located rather centrally to a large developable land area normally having greater capacity to change or be changed (as opposed to those that are constrained by large water bodies, mountains, wetlands, etc.).

 

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Development/Structure Shapes – with standard geometric shapes most likely having greater capacity to change or be changed.

 

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Development/Structure Complexity – simplicity often more adaptable than complexity.

 

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Development/Structure Variety– variety often more adaptable.

 

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Development/Structure Autonomy/Self-Sufficiency – being able to break up a large development/structure into smaller, autonomous parts being much more adaptable.

 

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Connectedness – with permanent connectedness being much less adaptable than optional connectedness and with optional connectedness being much more adaptable than no possible connectedness.

 

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Quantity –a larger quantity of structures or networks of structures with similar functions, providing more opportunity and choice for the residents and businesses in the event any become no longer operational.   (This often might be referred to as “redundancy.”)

 

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Composition – with structures composed of certain materials, or of certain combinations of subcomponents, or constructed with certain designs in such manner that they can be enlarged, downsized, moved, deconstructed, or re-utilized for alternative uses as unforeseen changes occur.

 

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Permanent Attachments – with structures that are the most permanently and strongly attached to the ground, or attached to other structures, normally having lesser capacity to change or be changed.

 

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Self-Organization – structures/development that are able to self-organize have obvious advantages.

 

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Open Space – with open spaces offering many opportunities for adaptivity and many for blocking adaptivity.  (This really needs much research.)

 

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Impediments – structures with impediments (boundaries, barriers, partitions, offensive/unfitting characteristics, etc.) nearby generally having lesser capacity to expand, relocate, or otherwise change or be changed.

 

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Surface coverings – with types of surface coverings having effect on rainfall absorption and heat retention, among other things.

 

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Relationship to natural environment – to seacoasts, flood plains, wetlands, steep slopes and many others having many effects (this is a subject already of extensive literature).

 

I am hoping that we will establish a science of adaptivity; and that one branch will be a science of adaptivity of the built environment.  Perhaps there already is one or the beginnings of one.  The above is intended as only one contribution to such science, for its consideration; I am hoping that will be many more.

 

What I am describing does not have to be called “adaptivity.”  Other words we could use might be adjustable, elastic, flexible, malleable, emergent (and this implies arising unexpectedly, calling for new changes not previously considered), pliable, transformational, pliant, or even supple.  Alternatively, we could talk about it terms of being able to accommodate, adjust, re-arrange, convert, re-modify, re-fit/retrofit, reconcile, re-harmonize with, transition, or similar. 

 

“Adaptivity,” however, to me is the word which most strongly implies a capacity to adapt, to re-organize and transform itself, or be transformed, with the fewest possible restraints on it, into new forms, locations, structures, supporting infrastructure, and social composition as the our world goes through a future of rapid and unpredictable change.

 

Adaptivity is a form of resilience.  I did not choose to use the word resilience when I first put these ideas together because at the time I understood resilience to be mostly a hardening of a structure or object, preventing it from breaking, breaking down, falling over or something similar.  I chose adaptivity because I believed it more obviously implied that the object or group of objects could change and then not change back. 

 

Adaptivity is not the same as sustainability.  Sustainability is quite important in our world today but it is constrained as an overriding principle. 

 

Sustainability, to me, implies that we must only use up resources at a rate that is similar to their replenishment, or at a rate that gives great weight to their total availability.  I believe that such a goal is virtually impossible under our current economic system.  Instead, adaptivity is meant to imply that we must be sufficiently flexible to accommodate the changes which will take place under our current economic system as we substitute various types of new/different resources which give us what we need after older resources are no longer available.

 

Adaptivity is already becoming the watchword in information technology, in corporate management, in education reform, and other areas.  In addition, it even is becoming accepted in public management and administration. 

 

However, we have yet to consider the same principle in terms of the “built environment” itself. 

 

I am quite certain there are many components of our built environment that, if developed within an overall framework of structural adaptivity, can actually be adaptable to a wide variety of future change possibilities.  Changes we are yet unable to predict and which we will not be able to predict for a long time.  We just have not yet put our minds to the task.

 

 

William Schnaufer