CLIMATE ACTION REQUIRES COLLABORATION.
ERA Architects and ARUP Canada have been working for decades in our respective fields to define and mitigate the influences and risks of climate change on the future of our built environment. We can only get so far alone. THE BASINS PROJECT combines our approach to strengthen our collective impact and we invite industry leaders to join us in exploring this new framework for resilient city-building and cultural heritage conservation.
ONLY TOGETHER CAN we SHAPE THE FUTURE OF OUR CITIES; to ensure a future for our cities.
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Climate change, and how we respond to it, is shaping our future.
Nowhere else in Ontario is this more felt than in the Great Lakes Basin, where flooding is no longer a rare occurrence.
Lake Levels Above Average Difference, June 2019 (data source: NOAA)More than 30 million people reside in the basin. Roughly 30% of Canada’s population and 10% of the U.S. population.
We must prepare our natural and built environments to respond and mitigate its impacts in order to protect our past, current and future cultural heritage.
HERITAGE CONSERVATION:
More than 170 registered heritage properties in the City of Toronto are near bodies of water, putting them at risk of flooding as climate change brings about an increase in extreme weather events.
Property mapping, ERA Architects.Yet there is no strategy for how to best protect these sites to ensure their use for generations to come.
Resiliency planning on a whole has not yet fully considered heritage planning in this process. As a result, our urban areas and their heritage sites are unprepared for instability and volatility.
We can only achieve a livable, resilient future through a collaborative approach rooted in resource-sharing and testing.
A New Framework:
The Basins Project is a network that bridges the gap between research and practice, our cultural heritage, and our cities as a whole.
The key principles of heritage conservation practice relies on collaboration and shared learning—the impacts of conservation always extend beyond property lines, influencing larger ecological and economic networks.
The Basins Project brings this approach to resiliency, deploying cultural heritage practices as a framework to how we approach climate change together, considering both the tangible and the intangible values of place.
We need all sectors to work together to tackle this issue that affects us all, from conservation authorities & municipalities, to think-tanks and industry leaders.