A New Understanding of Resilience in Architecture: Learning from Disruptions

Abstract

With a common meaning of the ability to a system or entity to bounce back in the face of a disturbance, resilience has multiple definitions. The term applied to the dif- ferent areas from particular disciplinary perspectives and investigated under sever- al frameworks that are specific to the discipline and the disruption considered. This paper argues that disruption is one of the essential drivers of any discussion on resil- ience and suggests that a framework for resilience in architecture requires considera- tion of long-term disruptions, as well as the instant ones, with tangible and intangi- ble aspects. In this context, this paper aims to develop a comprehensive understand- ing of disruptions that buildings face. It extends current approaches to resilience in buildings, which mainly focus on collapse prevention and hazard mitigation, by ex- plicitly considering the protection of functions and the continuous availability of ser- vices and the disruptions other than hazardous events. It proposes a framework of disruptions in buildings that includes changing cultural and economic context with the changes in the user needs, technology, environment, legal regulations.