why Resiliency
Systemic change is a growing prospect that the World Economic Forum has deemed a “Polycrisis” - a cluster of related global risks with compounding effects. This encompasses everything from a changing economy to natural disasters. Households can also suffer from personal disruptions such as job loss and health problems. From a well-being perspective, these events can have as great an impact as any national-level or global shocks.
Resilience is the ability to either absorb or bounce back from a disruption. Hg80 can help redesign your existing home and yard to provide you with an increased ability to absorb those shocks. Ideally, resilience measures should be general strategies that protect against an array of uncertain hazards. Even small steps taken to lower energy or water bills can decrease the stress a household feels if suffering from a disruption.
what we look at
This process begins with assessing the impact of potential disruptions and classifying current household needs in several key areas:
Thermal – insulation, air sealing, passive and active heating & cooling
Electrical – generation & storage
Storm/fire – roofing & siding, shutters, landscape hazards, air filtration
Water – collection & storage, for hygiene and landscape
Food – space for growing & storage
Security – lighting, doors, and visibility
Repairability – simple systems and materials that you can maintain
Transportation/lifestyle – practice living simply now!
design options
After determining your needs, I offer different levels of design, including:
Adaptation Project - consultation
A 1-hour meeting to brainstorm ideas for household resiliency:
Site Plan with sketch overlay
Collection of resource materials
Contact list of local installers
Adaptation Project - top to bottom
Altering your home and site to give your family resilience and flexibility:
Site Plan & details
Existing Floor Plan & key for alterations
Roof plan for rainwater catchment or solar array
Exterior Elevations
Pergola, accessory building, or rainwater tank details
Wall Details and Window Details
Diagnostic testing & analysis
Collection of resource materials
Contact list of local installers
Before we get started, I’ll send you an intake form so we can determine what level of design is right for you. For some DIY projects to increase your resiliency, check out my blog under Adaptation.
foundations of permaculture
To help guide resilient designs towards a whole-system thinking perspective, I like to design within the 12 Foundations of Permaculture:
Observe & interact – By taking time to observe nature and our design challenges, we can design solutions that fit our site and situation. Perform thorough site analysis, building analysis, and analysis of client needs.
Catch & store energy – By developing systems that collect resources when they are abundant, we can use them in times of need. Capture and use natural energy such as rainwater, sunlight, heat.
Obtain a yield – Ensure we are getting useful rewards as part of the work. Design should produce beauty, health, food, habitat, and recreational space.
Apply self-regulation & accept feedback – Make sure to ensure that systems are functioning well. Perform diagnostic testing on building improvements.
Use renewable resources & services – Make the best use of nature’s abundance to reduce our consumptive behavior. Reuse existing structures onsite when possible; if not, use recycled or local materials. Use natural flows rather than mechanical interventions.
Produce no waste – Value and make use of all of the resources that are available. Use zero-waste design best practices, use any material scraps for other small projects, utilize other’s waste material via Chipdrop, Freecycle, ReStore, etc.
Design from patterns to details – Observe the forest before the trees. Big-picture goals are the backbone of our design, with details pulled in along the way. Always step back out to keep an eye on your “forest.”
Integrate rather than segregate – By putting things in the right place, relationships develop between them and they support each other. Integrate and stack functionality, each design should serve multiple purposes.
Use small & slow solutions – Small and slow systems are easier to maintain than big ones, making better use of resources. Encourage building the overall project in phases in order to minimize site disturbance, help budgeting, and enable adaptation of the plan if needed. Use the smallest interventions possible to solve a problem.
Use & value diversity – Diversity reduces vulnerability to a variety of threats and takes advantage of the unique nature of the environment in which it resides. Create redundancies and backup systems for each design goal.
Use edges & value the marginal – The interface between things is where the most interesting events take place. These are often the most diverse and productive elements in the system. Consider every niche, side yard, and corner and make sure they are utilized.
Creatively use and respond to change – Vision is not seeing things as they are, but as they will be. Understand potential future changes, from global such as climate change, to personal such as aging-in-place.
Discover more about permaculture here, or I highly recommend Gaia’s Garden by Toby Hemenway!