May 24, 2019, 5-6:16pm  

“Resilient By Engagement” panel

The Environmental Design Research Association, Link.

Janette Kim will present the In It Together board game at the upcoming EDRA Conference at a panel titled “Resilient by Engagement” with N. Claire Napawan, Brett Snyder, Beth Ferguson and moderator Karen Kubey.

Climate change is often conceptualized as an impending ecological disaster. However, vulnerability to its impacts are more accurately defined by social factors which present challenges to communities every day. Moreover, the predicted impacts that will exacerbate vulnerability are often difficult to comprehend or easily ignored given the global scale, extended time frames (Gilbert, 2006), and predominantly negative imagery associated with climate change (Wang, et. al, 2018). Building resilience to these impacts will require engaging communities in defining indicators for vulnerability and co-designing opportunities for adaptation. It will also require communicating projected impacts to communities in a manner that encourages acceptance, dialogue, and action (Corner, et. al, 2015). As such, we need new tools for communicating climate impacts, defining vulnerability indicators, and engaging diverse publics in planning for future resilience. This requires collaboration between designers, decision-makers, and community members and a robust conversation about the full socio-ecological dimensions of climate change through social science and humanistic methodologies; we believe that place-based participatory design and decision-making can provide the opportunity for just that (Paschen and Ison, 2013).

This panel will explore strategies that ground conceptualizations of place, risk, and resilience through engagement with vulnerable communities, developed in collaboration with the 2017 Resilient by Design Bay Area Challenge. Panelists include experts in co-design and participatory design methodologies, climate engagement, graphic and media design, and resilience planning. Whether through gaming, social networking, or play-based learning, innovative approaches at digital and physical engagement will presented at a range of scales and contexts.