2.17

Design for Resilience: Climate Adaptation and Nature-based Solutions

In this first step of the design case studies focused on land and lived spaces, we will get a better understanding of how design can be used as a powerful tool for rethinking, and reorganizing the work on climate and related societal challenges.

As an example of this creative and critical rethinking we will also look at some case studies on nature-based solutions involving funghi to fight wildfires and how beavers are restoring and protecting nature, for the benefit of both ecosystems and human societies.

Design for Resilience: Making the Future We Leave Behind

Stuart Walker’s book, “Design for Resilience: Making the Future We Leave Behind” (2023), serves as a visionary framework and philosophical inquiry into how design must fundamentally change to address the existential threats of climate change and other global challenges.

The book argues that the current wealth-driven economic systems have created a deeply inequitable and unsustainable world, leading to climate disaster, vast disparities, and social upheaval. Walker asserts that the creative practice of design must move past this model – which prioritizes novelty, endless consumption, and technological solutions alone—and instead focus on resilience and restorative principles.

Nature-based Solutions

Nature-based solutions are cost-effective, multifunctional actions that address societal challenges – like climate adaptation and the accelerating loss of biodiversity – by protecting, developing, or creating ecosystems. According to The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, these solutions are critical tools because they simultaneously tackle climate change and biodiversity loss while promoting human wellbeing and increasing societal resilience to environmental changes.

Fighting Wildfires with Fungi
Forest fire prevention methods often create overly dense forests, increasing wildfire risk. The article ‘Fighting wildfires with fungi’ suggests that decay fungi can offer a nature-based solution by serving as natural decomposition. Developed by local mycologist Zach Hedstrom, it involves the fungi breaking down wood’s vascular tissues to reduce the buildup of hazardous fuels and safely transform the material back into soil.

Another mushroom example comes from environmental scientist Danielle Stevenson who in the video below demonstrates ‘Mycoremediation’, a nature-based solution using fungi (mycelium) to clean up soil polluted by toxic compounds and metals left after urban wildfires. This innovative approach offers a cost-effective alternative to conventional ‘dig and dump’ methods, helping ecosystems to recover.

Beavers: We tried to wipe them out. Now they’re fixing our mess
This video examines beavers as natural ecosystem engineers that fix problems caused by human societies. By building dams, beavers create wetlands that filter pollutants, raise groundwater levels, and mitigate the effects of droughts and floods. This nature-based solution offers substantial ecological and economic benefits.

Further reading, learning and references

Walker, S. (2023). Design for Resilience: Making the Future We Leave Behind https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262048095/design-for-resilience/

stuart walker design https://www.stuartwalker.org.uk/

The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency – Nature-based solutions: A tool for climate adaptation and other societal challenges https://www.naturvardsverket.se/publikationer/7000/978-91-620-7074-8/

Fair Planet – Fighting wildfires with fungi https://www.fairplanet.org/story/fighting-wildfires-with-fungi/

© Daniel Mossberg, CEMUS, Uppsala University and Sonali Phadke, studio Alternatives and Stephanie Foote