SMART-ER Communities of practices - Resilient Communities

In the last decade, our built environment has been exposed to a significant and wide range of crises, from primary (e.g., pandemic, climate change-induced hazards) to secondary crises, such as their associated physical and mental health impacts. However, previous literature has mainly focused on the impacts of a single type of crisis in the built environment and solutions for individual impacts. Hence, in the face of multiple crises and their impacts that we are facing now, understanding the possible solutions and their characteristics is crucial to achieve a more resilient built environment. This paper aims to gain a better understanding about how different crises impact the built environment and which solutions have been proven effective, particularly as a response to multiple crises. First, a systematic literature review is presented, identifying main crises impacts on the built environment and their solutions. Secondly, through a qualitative data analysis, the main interconnections between the identified crises impacts and solutions were established. Findings highlight that the main solutions that provide resilience to multiple crises in the built environment, are (1) green and healthy infrastructures; (2) adaptable infrastructures; and (3) equitable and inclusive infrastructures. Finally, key characteristics for the design of resilient solutions for the built environment are discussed and an evaluation framework is proposed.

Please contact between Dr Arpita Chakraborty and Dr S. Harikrishnan, both affiliated to the School of Law and Goverenment at DCU.

Dr Arpita Chakraborty is currently the PI of a Pathway project which is working on improving access to services for domestic violence survivors from the South Asian migrant community in Ireland. One of the significant barriers for such survivors is the crushing loneliness of being alone in a new country, with no support system, often linguistic barriers and no social spaces to make new acquaintances. To address these issues, as part of this project, she is working towards building a community space called ASHA - a monthly gathering of south asian women where they can meet each other over tea and create a socio-cultural space for themselves over time.

Dr Harikrishnan is an Assistant Professor, who works on social spaces and political culture. He has been working on the social geographies of first generation migrants in Ireland, and how they use informal social networks to access services or resources in the absence of clear guidelines on institutional support for migrants. These services or resources are sometimes inaccessible due to linguistic, cultural or legal barriers. While these informal networks built over time are often a lifeline for new immigrants, they can also turn exploitative or sources of misinformation.

Coming from these two related perspectives, Dr Chakraborty and Dr Harikrishnan are collaborating to create an inclusive and accessible space that bridges the policy gap between informal social networks, and “formal” institutional ones. This will be a physical space to meet, consult and create - but also a digital space which can help immigrants answer all their questions in their own languages in an easy and accessible way. We envision the materialisation of this digital and physical space through a collaborative project between the current Pathway team, Dr Harikrishnan, the AI Chatbot specialists from the School of Computing and the Machine Learning and Translation team from SALIS, DCU. The current collaborators of the Pathway project, Dr Sahar Ahmed from Maynooth University and Dr Nasrin Khandoker from University of Cork will be contributing with their legal and cultural expertise from the specific Pakistani and Bangladeshi contexts.

Dr Arpita Chakraborty: arpita.chakraborty [at] dcu.ie 

Dr S. Harikrishnan: harikrishnan.sasikumar [at] dcu.ie