PBS puts the focus on retrofitting existing buildings for disaster planning in an article looking at different strategies, design competitions including non-profit Rebuild By Design, and organizations in the field such as Build Change.
“After the 2015 earthquake in Nepal, Build Change saw an opportunity to make resilient homes affordable to those affected. Working with Nepal’s government, the company estimated tearing down and rebuilding damaged homes would cost $20,000 in total,” writes Zoe Rohrich for PBS. “But instead of tearing down the buildings, Build Change designed a solution to rehabilitate the houses and make them more likely to withstand earthquakes in the future — all for less than $3,000.” Using these low cost solutions around the globe could help mitigate the impact of future disasters in areas such as Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean, not to mention hard hit locations within the United States such as New Orleans.
“I want to be very clear: it’s not only about economics,” said Amy Chester, managing director of Rebuild by Design to PBS. “It’s also about people’s lives. Building back is very, very traumatic.”
