S1, Ep7 What can emergencies teach us about design? With Greg Kochanowski, Molly Peterson and Richard Mullane

Events like COVID-19, wildfires and hurricanes teach us valuable lessons about the way people – and the public places built for them – respond and recover post disaster.

If they’re not confined to their homes, communities are separated – scattering to places for medical attention, shelter or to the comfort of community. They could find themselves anywhere from a sports stadium to a community hall - to a beach.

Greg Kochanowski, Studio Director at Rios Clementi Hale, and climate & science reporter Molly Peterson join Hassell's Richard Mullane in this podcast to discuss how resilience – the ability for an environment to recover – isn’t developed in the aftermath of a disaster.

The foundations are built way before, so that when emergencies do come, people are strong enough to get through them. It’s less about what’s built and more about what’s designed for – a different kind of design thinking that should be part of the ‘new normal’.