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Designing for Disaster

The Washington National Building Museum presents an exhibition that is a call-to-action for citizen preparedness – from design professionals to homeowners and school kids.

From earthquakes and hurricanes to flooding and rising sea levels, natural disasters can strike anywhere and at any time. No region of the country is immune from the impacts and rising costs of disaster damage.

In light of this stark reality, the National Building Museum presents a multimedia exhibition titled “Designing for Disaster”, a call-to-action for citizen preparedness – from design professionals and local decision-makers to homeowners and school kids. The exhibition explores strategies local leaders are currently pursuing to reduce their risks and build more disaster-resilient communities.

Visitors explore new approaches in design and engineering to protect life and property against a range of natural hazards. The exhibition is organized by the destructive forces associated with each of the elements: Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. Artifacts from past disasters, such as a door marked after Hurricane Katrina, singed opera glasses from the Waldo Canyon wildfire, and stone fragments from the earthquake-damaged National Cathedral, express the destructive power of nature.

Case studies explore a range of flexible design and planning schemes, public policies, and new forecasting technologies as ways to reduce risks before the next disaster. The scale is as varied as the solutions, from engineering advancements and seismic retrofits of esteemed historic buildings (University of California, Berkeley’s Memorial Stadium) and bridges (Eastern Span of the Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge) to urgent, hands-on lessons, through models, animated drawings, and interactive displays.

Multimedia components include expert profiles: new interviews with industry leaders, such as Richard Knabb, director of the National Hurricane Center and Kit Miyamoto, CEO, Miyamoto International and California Seismic Safety Commissioner; a testing video from the Insurance Industry for Business & Home Safety Research Center in Richburg, South Carolina, where experts test the effect of gale-force winds on residential structures; a recording from the 1989 MLB World Series, interrupted by an earthquake; and a projection table exploring the 2010 Fourmile Canyon fire in Colorado. Custom interactives will allow visitors to test their disaster preparedness by choosing the best recourse in disaster scenarios.

The exhibition closes with images and stories of everyday people who have taken steps both large and small to safeguard their homes and families. Visitors are challenged to take similar actions. Links to online resources, an ongoing exhibition blog, and a blog/social media campaign called #MitigationNation help visitors get started.