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Full-Text Articles in Architecture
From Fail-Safe To Safe-To-Fail: Sustainability And Resilience In The New Urban World, Jack F. Ahern
From Fail-Safe To Safe-To-Fail: Sustainability And Resilience In The New Urban World, Jack F. Ahern
Landscape Architecture & Regional Planning Studio and Student Research and Creative Activity
Abstract: The extent to which the 21st Century world will be "sustainable" depends in large part on the sustainability of cities. Early ideas on implementing sustainability focused on concepts of achieving stability, practicing effective management and the control of change and growth-- a "fail-safe" mentality. More recent thinking about change, disturbance, uncertainty, and adaptability is fundamental to the emerging science of resilience, the capacity of systems to reorganize and recover from change and disturbance without changing to other states-- in other words, systems that are "safe to fail." While the concept of resilience is intellectually intriguing, it remains largely unpracticed …
Gloucester Marine Station: Future Development Feasibility Study, Jack F. Ahern, Ben Eli Webb
Gloucester Marine Station: Future Development Feasibility Study, Jack F. Ahern, Ben Eli Webb
Landscape Architecture & Regional Planning Studio and Student Research and Creative Activity
The study commenced in July 2009 with historical research about the site and its context, site analysis, including the existing conditions and development regulations. This analysis included: topography, soils, vegetation, structures, utilities, easements, property deed, and city, state, and federal regulations. From this analysis an assessment of future development potentials was made based on the existing data/documents from UMass files, public records, Mass GIS data, site visits, and interviews with Gloucester, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and other officials and stakeholders. From the assessment we identified potential future uses, building locations, and feasible alternative layouts of the site. These alternatives were summarily …