Panarchic Codex :: Pyroachetypes pamphlet

Applied to the panarchic wildfire persisting trio, the Adaptive Cycle (right) is expressed at:

Panarchic Codex®

• The level of the architectural ‘specimen’ in pyroevaders, which, like their ecological counterparts succumb to wildfire, but reproduce [seed] upon the passing of a mixed to high-severity fire, thus, transition from the K to Ω phase occurs with each fire cycle.

A proposal for the reconciliation of human and nonhuman systems at the wildland-urban-interface.

PYROARCHETYPES

• The scale of the architectural ‘species’ in pyroendurers, which, like their ecological counterparts, resprout upon the passing of a low to mixedseverity fire, but which absent of traits that enable them to endure high-severity fires, at the specieslevel, transition from the K to Ω phase whereupon the historical fire regime shifts from low-to-mixed, to mixed-to-high severity.

Wildfires as a catalyst for ecosystem renewal mapped on Gunderson and Holling’s ‘Adaptive Cycle’.

Paradigm for the Pyrocene

• The scale of the architectural ‘ecosystem’ in pyroresistors, which, like their ecological counterparts, resist upon the passing of low to mixed-severity fire for several fire seasons, but of limited lifeterm, can only successfully reproduce whereupon fire intervals are long enough for their offspring to grow sufficiently robust defences to resist wildfire’s passing. Thus, the transition from the K to Ω phase occurs when the historical fire regime not merely shifts from low-to-mixed to mixed-tohigh severity, but to fire return intervals too short, eve, for die-hardy resistors to accommodate.

Preparing for a new fire age Though a step, not a destination in an evolutionary journey, the three distinct architectural genera mimic biochemistries, behaviours, and systems that have enabled some of the longest-living plant genus on the planet to endure, evade, and resist wildfire at both frequencies and intensities far above and beyond those humanity has so-far witnessed.

Disclaimer

Put succinctly, pyro evaders, endurers, and resistors may be perceived as expressions of the Adaptive Cycle at multiple spatiotemporal scales.

© Bioratorium Limited & Melissa Sterry 2020 All Rights Reserved

A speculative work, which has been created to provoke new architectural and urban thinking and practices when designing for the wildland-urban-interface, this pamphlet is for use as an educational and learning tool only.

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@panarchiccodex

Tri-part paradigm

© Bioratorium Limited & Melissa Sterry 2020 All Rights Reserved

Since the dawn of the Industrial Age, the architecture and urban design narratives of the Global North have been largely treated as a thing apart from Earth systems. This tri-part paradigm advocates that not merely must the former be synchronous to the latter, but form a synecological unit in which, be they seasonal, decadal, millennial, or epochal, material and information exchanges flow with, not against fire cycles. Thus, the principle parameters within which decisions are made when applying this trichotomous paradigm fall within the domain of the Earth, not political nor economic sciences.

As in life, the moment a building is ‘born’ it progresses towards death, the event thereof not an ‘if’, but a ‘when’. This paradigm, in which both materially and informatically architecture evolves in space and time, is consumed not with creating architectural ‘specimens’, but ‘lineages’: an Origin of Architectural Genera endowed with functional traits that enable coexistence with one or more fire regimes, and with their affiliated intensities, severities, and behaviours. A pan-archaic paradigm, in that its scope is as expansive as its origins are ancient, Panarchistic Architecture rejects the notion that any one architectural schema has universal application.

As flora and fauna exhibit not homogeneity in their resilience to wildfire and to other environmental disturbances, so too must architectures that straddle wild and urban lands. Thus, Panarchistic Architecture will become manifest in not one, but various forms of which the workings, thus appearance, will vary from one fire regime-type to another. Therein, unlike most other architectural paradigms though highly

principled in its approach, Panarchistic Architecture is not prescriptive.

Practice of Panarchistic Architecture will necessitate familiarity with the low-severity, mixed-severity, and high-severity fire regimes, and with the fundamental biochemistry, physics, and ecology of wildfire more generally. As one of the fastest-developing scientific domains, by necessity, research must be ongoing particularly given climate trajectories suggest that transitions from one fire-regime type to another are highly probable in wide-ranging regions.

As do species native to fire-prone regions, each of the architectural genera select traits which, be they morphological, biochemical, physiological, phenological, or behavioural, align to one of these three modes of wildfire persistence:

Pyro-Endurance Evolved to persist in WUI adjoining low and mixedseverity fire regimes, pyro-enduring architectures will comprise functional traits selected to endure frequent, but relatively low intensity fires.

Pyro-Evasion Evolved to persist in WUI adjoining mixed and highseverity fire regimes, pyro-evading architectures will comprise functional traits selected to evade relatively infrequent, but high intensity fires.

Pyro-Evasion Evolved to persist in WUI adjoining low and mixedseverity fire regimes, pyro-resisting architectures will comprise functional traits selected to resist frequent, but relatively low intensity fires.

Perpetual Pyropangenesis Highly attuned to their environment, when climatic and/ or ecological regime shifts occur, all three members of this Panarchistic architectural trio evolve in response.

Their DNA [building and design codes] edit functional traits as befit emerging conditions. As such, pyroendurers, pyro-evaders, and pyro-resistors constitute three architectural R’s, not ‘re-use, reduce, and recycle’, but resprout [replicate], redistribute [reproduce], and resist [remain].

Pyropangenesis, as expressed in the tri-part Panarchistic Architecture paradigm, aligns with the principles of Gunderson et al’s ‘Adaptive Cycle’, but its spatio-temporal dimensions vary across its three quantitatively and qualitatively distinct modes of wildfire persistence.

Four stages [functions] are expressed within the cycle: exploitation [r-phase], conservation [K-phase], release [Ω- phase], and reorganisation [α-phase], which collectively express the integration of creative destruction to the successional model as preceded it, thus the addition of the Ω and α phases. Cont.

This text is extracted from ‘Panarchistic Architecture: Building Wildland-Urban Interface Resilience to Wildfire through Design Thinking, Practice and Building Codes Modelled on Ecological Systems Theory’, 2018.