Disaster-Resilient Design

Before any design move: why buildings — not earthquakes — kill people, and why that is preventable; the language of risk and resilience; India's hazard landscape; and the shift from minimum codes to a culture of safety.

The forces themselves, demystified: how earthquakes shake a building, floods and storm surge, cyclones and wind, and fire, landslide and the reality of multi-hazard sites.

Resilience begins before the building: reading the site for hazard, avoidance and resilient land-use, resilient settlements at the urban scale, and the resilient masterplan.

Designing for the shake: how earthquakes load a building, the decisive role of configuration and regularity, ductility and detailing, and seismic systems from shear walls to base isolation.

Designing for the storm: wind loads and building form, the envelope under pressure, roofs, openings and wind-borne debris, and cyclone shelters and safe rooms.

Designing for water: the logic of flood-resilient design, elevating and dry floodproofing, wet floodproofing and flood-tolerant materials, and the water-sensitive, well-drained site.

What actually survives: resilient materials and their behaviour, the continuous load path and its connections, non-engineered and vernacular construction, and the decisive role of construction quality.

The dangers beyond the frame: non-structural elements and contents, building services and lifelines, fire following earthquake, and keeping critical facilities running.

Resilience by building type: the resilient home, schools and hospitals as lifelines, heritage and resilient retrofit, and dense, informal and coastal settlements.

Existing buildings and the aftermath: vulnerability and risk assessment, retrofitting existing buildings, post-disaster damage and reconstruction, and building back better.

Turning resilience into practice: codes, standards and the law, the architect's role and the team, climate change and future risk, and becoming a resilience-minded designer.