Designing For Climate Resilience
Sunday’s launch of #DesignWeekJa2024 highlighted the importance of homes being more climate resilient in a tumultuous environment.
Ashley Furniture Homestore in Liguanea expanded the topic under the theme ‘Designing for Climate Resilience’. The event hosted Tuesday evening by Ashley Furniture Homestore and the National Housing Trust proved to be an illuminating panel discussion on how individuals can make their homes more sustainable.
The panel was hosted by noted author Shelly Ann Weeks and featured Angelie Martin-Spencer interior designer and principal of Angelie Spencer Home (ASH); engineer and real estate management consultant Shani Dacres-Lovindeer; and architect Laurie Ferron, managing director of Pyramid Design Consultants.
With the rapid change of environmental conditions, Martin-Spencer voiced the importance of having a more sustainable mindset in how people build and design homes, from conception to the finished product.
“Nobody has money to throw around. It’s very important to properly research and just really think about how your space is going to serve you. We want it to look good but we want it to be sustainable and to be functional… We really are sick and tired of [seeing] old pieces of furniture filling up landfills,” Martin-Spencer said.
With the fields of interior designing, architecture and engineering coming together, Ferron believes that teamwork between all parties is necessary in addressing how a building will be able to meet current climate concerns.
“What is important to me and to others is to have a coordinated effect. It is not just architects designing something or the engineer designing something,” Ferron explained.
“The whole idea is that everybody wants to be in a small space. But we have to just maintain the principles. How do you modify the climate? How do you deal with water? You have to do proper site investigation and feasibility study before you even start to do the design. It’s really about studying the environment first.”
Dacres-Lovindeer provided an interesting counterpoint, highlighting the flaws of constructing buildings against the natural environment while championing clients asking critical questions to stress-test its viability.
“For some time now we have been building structures that are designed to keep our environment out and then we serve it at the back end. And we put on all the useful systems but the system is fighting against the structure,” she noted.
“Clients, architects and designers need to have an in-depth conversation. Clients need to ask [the builders] what is your stance on resilience and sustainability? How is this feature, structure or element going to be resilient? By resilience, I am talking about water conservation. We are talking about thermal conservation and how the building will behave under various conditions.”
As the conversation concluded, Ferron and Martin Spencer were adamant about what the future will look like in how homes are constructed.
“People are looking at green development, green subdivisions and putting in more green spaces. There is an awakening and people are realising that it’s happening. What we are finding as we start to build is that in five years’ time the technology that we use today might probably expire or improve,” Ferron said.
“The cost is important but people are realising that if we don’t do it now, we are going to have a problem later on.
“We need to start designing our homes from the inside out. How are you and your family living in the space? Who is living in the space? Who is it serving and what purpose is it serving? You need to have those things first.”
A lively question-and-answer session which covered issues ranging from dealing with construction breaching to how electric vehicles can be adapted in a potential building, followed the panel discussion..
The session proved to be informative and engaging, with many in agreement with Weeks that the “conversation has indeed started” regarding climate resilience.
