Panarchic Codex

The product of an extensive transdisciplinary programme researching the potential for building resilience to wildfires through the mimicry of the biochemistries, behaviours, relationships and systems of fire-adapted species, and the assemblages the form, Panarchistic Architecture posits a radical new architectural and urban design paradigm for the wildland-urban-interface. The thesis, ongoing publishing works, including a podcast and an interview series, together with updates on research collaborations, lectures, and more, are available open access at www.panarchiccodex.com.

Extract: "Situated in a yet to be “established” field (Smith et al, 2016), this site and the works it hosts explore one of the most complex and contentious challenges or our time - the problem of living with wildfire on an “inherently” flammable planet” (Bowman et al, 2011). Residing at the apex of Earth systems, wildfire has been integral to the development of much terrestrial plant and animal life on Earth. But, its role in the evolution of our own lineage - Primates, and latterly Humans - is arguably the most compelling, curious, and currently, crucial of all. Multiple factors signalling the advent of a new “fire age” (Pyne, 2016), the paradigm presented here takes the task of living with wildfire back to the design drawing board, asking not how we, humans, would solve the problem, but how fire-adapted flora already have." 

Read more here.