On Nov. 4 and 5, the Yale School of Architecture will host a symposium focusing on the construction of safer buildings to withstand the kinds of extreme weather events that have besieged Haiti, Japan, and Latin America in recent years. Titled “Catastrophe and Consequence: the Campaign for Safe Building,” the event will focus on the developing world, where exponential urban growth, inadequate building codes, and cheap construction have made structures especially vulnerable to climate-change-exacerbated natural disasters. Sessions will include a conversation between architects Enrique Norton and Brad Perkins, a panel discussion on urban renewal in Medellin, Colombia, and a presentation by Pras Michel, the documentarian and former member of hip-hop group the Fugees, about destruction and recovery in his native Haiti following the country’s 2010 earthquake. Teddy Cruz, the visionary architect behind a number of small-scale housing and commercial developments on the California-Mexico border, will deliver the final address, “Transforming the Ways We Build.”
Though the symposium is free, those wishing to attend must register by Oct. 28. All sessions will take place in the school’s Paul Rudolph Hall. The symposium is supported by the Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation, the New York–based non-profit supporting the arts and social justice.
