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In this episode, we explore climate resilient design—how homes and communities can adapt to a rapidly changing world. We highlight innovations like solar-powered towns, fog-harvesting mesh, recycled construction materials, and closed-loop water systems. We ask: should the future of housing center on mobility or deep-rooted resilience? From rethinking how we use water to designing for disaster resistance, we explore how these shifts are shaping not only how we live—but also the kinds of jobs that will emerge in a climate-resilient future.
Selected Links:
“Babcock Ranch: The Hometown of Tomorrow.” https://www.babcockranch.com/. Accessed 25 Mar 2025
Frederickson, Emma. “Scientists Want to Farm Fog to Solve the Water Crisis.” Popular Mechanics. 24 Feb 2025, https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/green-tech/a63868901/fog-farming-water-vapor/
“PLAEX Building Systems, Inc.” https://www.plaex.ca/. Accessed 25 Mar. 2025.
Woody, Todd. “The Next Green Must-Have: Showers That Use Recycled Water.” Time Magazine. 31 Jan 2022, https://time.com/6143604/showers-recycled-water/
Episode Transcript:
Lana: Welcome to Signal Shift, by Horizon Shift Lab. We're your hosts, Lana Price, Raakhee Natha, and Sue Chi. Each episode, we explore the latest signals in technology, culture, and society, uncovering insights that will impact our daily lives in the future. Join us as we shift perspectives, explore possibilities, and delve into real changes in our world. Curious to learn more? Go to horizonshiftlab.com.
Lana: Welcome back to Signal Shift. Whether you're listening or watching us on YouTube, we appreciate being in conversation with you.
So we're continuing our theme on the future of cities and housing, and this time focusing on climate resilient design and living. So there's a principle in design that says good design isn't just about aesthetics, it's about adaptability. So when we think about our homes, the places where we seek safety and stability, how can they withstand disruption, protect the people who live in them, and evolve over time?
And beyond just adapting, how can we design in a way that restores and regenerates, giving back to the earth rather than just taking from it? And so today we're exploring these questions through signals. What are the emerging ideas and innovations that may shape the future of how we live? So Raakhee, what did you find on this topic of climate resilient design and living?
Raakhee: Yeah, I will share, Lana, that I found more than I thought I would, which is in itself really hopeful and exciting, I think, about the future. And so the first one I'd love to share was a place called Babcock Ranch near Fort Myers, Florida,
I guess it's a sort of planned, sustainable, technology-focused type of community that's been established there. Some facts about it is that it's the first solar-powered town in the United States. But more importantly, the whole point of this town is that it's meant to be hurricane-proof, because as we know, they really get them out there. Of course, it's more than just housing. It's lots of green spaces, outdoor recreation.
Sort of smart city initiatives that they talk about. They have a school, they have retail shops, a sports facility. It's really meant to encompass all the needs, right? To serve all the needs that a community might have.
And by 2035, the community should, it looks like it's going to have 19,500 residences and be completely full.
But what is really interesting is how did it work? How do they make it resilient? How do they make it hurricane proof? And some of the things they do is, one, they built 30 feet above sea level. And very interestingly enough, they do it on preserved wetlands.
So their whole concept, their premise, I think Lana, kind of you alluded to this in your intro, right? And their thing is to work with Mother Nature, not against her, right? So the area has these wetlands, which are really good at really taking up rainwater, right? And leading rainwater out the right way.
Another thing that makes them, of course, really resilient is the fact that they have renewable energy sources. So they have about 687,000 solar panels that gives them the energy that they need.
And there's other things that they've done, like every house has reinforced roofs. They have impact resistant windows so that they don't shatter from the hurricane winds, which, you know, go up very high, right, up to like 150 miles per hour, if it's like a category four storm. So it can withstand those sorts of winds. And then I thought of you again, Lana, with this one, but their power lines are installed underground.
So yeah, I think the fact that they have the solar panels, the power lines underground, and also just the location. They built very carefully in a region that has these natural barrier island beaches. In essence, again, serving as a buffer to storms.
And so what's really interesting is when they do have hurricanes, not a single house lost power. They have internet, they continue to have access to clean water, nothing floods.So I thought that was a cool example of just resilient communities.
Lana: That is a really cool example. I was actually tempted to also talk about that Babcock Ranch, so I'm glad that I didn't. But one of the things that I was trying to research - and I was curious about was that a lot of insurance companies have exited from Florida from providing home insurance because of all the risk. And so I was curious whether there was like the presence of home insurers in these specific communities. I didn't get very far in that search. But yeah, I think it sounds very promising for sure.
One of the areas that I was focused on for this talk, similar to what you were saying about the wetlands is water, because March 22nd is World Water Day.
And it's just a good reminder that water isn't just a resource, it's a human right. And not to add to our list of things to worry about, but water scarcity is like a real thing globally and in the United States.
I found a signal about how scientists are now looking for new water sources. And one thing that they're doing is harvesting fog. And so it's from a study in the Frontiers in Environmental Science. And it's this area in Chile, which is one of the driest places on Earth. It has less than a millimeter of rainfall per year. And its underground aquifers have not been replenished in over 10,000 years.
But scientists have found a way to tap into something else, which is fog. So they use these mesh panels, and they capture water droplets from the air. And then they funnel them down into these storage tanks. And so it's very low cost, it's passive, right? It's low maintenance. And so one square meter of this mesh panel can capture two and a half liters of water. So if you think about like a liter bottle of water, like maybe something you'd get at the airport, know, it's like one square meter to capture two and a half liter bottles of water.
I think that's per week. And so to me, that just says like, okay, if we are going through all of this trouble to capture two and a half liter bottles of water, how would we use water differently if we can recognize how difficult it is to kind of capture this clean water sources? So that was something that I thought was kind of interesting.
Raakhee: Wow, yeah, Lana. I know there's all these crazy experiments with the rain going on, And like Dubai is making artificial rain and things like that, right? So yeah, I don't know. It's so interesting. I mean, it theoretically makes a lot of sense. Okay, take the moisture wherever it is, right? And turn it into water. But then to your point, it's like, okay. It's very little water.
And then there's definitely a part of me that feels like, you know, if nature's not doing it naturally, like if the systems of nature are working to keep that area dry, I always wonder, it's like nature has a way of keeping its own balance for its own reasons that we don't understand because we don't understand the full system, right? So it's doing that for a reason.
And I think where I went with… The second signal is almost a different space to the first one where the first one was kind of really around, you know, because in my head, I am grappling with these ideas of is it about building, right? Resilience where you are. Is it about mobility? Is it about, you know, being able to pack up easily and leave easily and and not having this attachment to one place or and in those are very real things in my own personal life right now, living in wildfire region in California.
But the second signal is really linked to, think, more of that ability to lay down bricks and take them down in a very literal sense. So the second signal is about a company that's developed Lego-like construction bricks. So we've all played with Lego as kids. And if you have, you technically could build all of these houses because you would just take this material these bricks, they're really big bricks and they interlock into each other and that's how they get built. and the product is called PLAEX. It's P-L-A-E-X, Plaex- Crete. And it's basically, it's a strong composite. It's made up of more than 90% of recycled plastic,
And the company says that to build a double story would take 11 to 12 days with minimal equipment. And the whole point is they obviously thinking that one, it's for DIYers, people who can build a house quickly, or it's for robots ultimately, right? Who can quickly just place them and so you can have robots building multiple of these houses. So between like 3D printing and everything else with robotics and then bricks like this now, yeah, it could be really fast to build a house.
So, yeah, it's really, really interesting. They are not available for houses at the moment. But you can use them for storage for certain types of walls and in your landscaping. So they are getting there. They're through their whole process, taking permits and licenses and become kind of a house use product, which hopefully they will.
But yeah, it really, in my head, I was like, do you use these Lego bricks and build a house quickly then if you lose a house, right? So it can be a really great interim solution for people who are facing situations. But is it a big idea around just that mobility and us being kind of nomads in a certain sense.
And so I thought this material was really interesting in a sense of, wow, you could make a house really quickly if you needed to be somewhere, but can you bring a house down really quickly? Like, I know it's going into fire season. Do I bring down this home I live in, right? And again, this is going to really depend on the lifestyle you want.
Lana: Yeah, I think you brought up a really, really thought provoking idea about, know, is this about staying? Is it about going?
I think when Sue and I did the talk about the air quality scenario, that was a core question, right? Which is like, if you knew your area was gonna be potentially toxic or in a crisis, would you stay or would you go? So I think that that's a big question to grapple with. And I think as a recent homeowner, it is extremely painful to think about like, invest everything in a home. It's very vulnerable, I think feeling to be like, oh, this could just go away.
But I think that means I think it's important to face it. Yeah, I think that's why we do this, right, because we want to, even by asking the question, even by imagining something that we might not want to imagine, we still have some agency, right, over designing, like, okay. There could be a path. There could be a solution that would feel okay to me or acceptable.
Mine was also about the home and on the water theme, I was thinking about how we use water in our homes because we're, you know, like the average US household uses like 300 gallons of water.
And so half of that is in the bathroom. And so the number one culprit is the toilet. That's like where a lot of leaks happen and just generally a lot of water waste. And number two is like bathing, showering. And so one innovation that I'm really interested in is a recycled water shower. And so they have a couple of them on the market. They're pretty high end. But it's, you know, it's basically a zero waste water solution because when you use it and it cleanses it and it comes back in and so it just sort of like rotates through.
And IKEA is actually, I think, has a minority stake in one of the companies and is developing it and I think wanting to produce something that is kind of the IKEA level of accessibility. So I think that would be exciting.
Yeah, and I think that would be on my wish list is like a rainwater slash graywater system because where I live, rains a lot. And so I was like, that kind of makes sense. As you were saying, let's work with what we got. If it rains all the time, why not capture that and use that for your toilet water? Use that. Graywater is like water that's already been run through, for example, your washer. And so, yeah, where does that water go? Like that could be used for your plants, for example. And so, yeah, think there are solutions out there, but right now, they're kind of expensive. so moving towards a future where that becomes more normal, more accessible.
And frankly, it's just gonna be more necessary, right? Because as we have droughts and other sort of climate related phenomenon, it's going to impact our water and we have to do those things.
One fun question that I wanted to close with. So next month, we're gonna be talking about the future of work.
And so curious, Raakhee, what we've talked about today, which is a broad range of climate resilient community solutions and home solutions, what do you think the impact of this is on the future of work and careers?
Raakhee: Yeah, I, and this one's close to me. I love architecture and my niece is an interior designer and I'm so always constantly worrying about her future. Yeah, I think the home design, the city design, the urban design space, the designing and building is core to who we are as people. And that's not going away, but it's just going to transform, right?
One we have got to be able to work with technology. So I can totally imagine a construction site with, yeah, there's going to have to be humans, but there's going to be robots. And you're going to have to be comfortable with them and working with them and engaging with them. And I think a big part of it is also learning. It's as humans, don't think we're going to ever get to a point where we're like, we'll just leave the robots ultimately let them do it. We'll let them do the work, but we'll always still want control. We're humans. Right. And there's a lot of opportunity in that, right? We still have to oversee. We have to still give those prompts to these machines, get them to work a certain way. So one, I think there's massive opportunity there, right? And then I think there's this field of creativity in all these solutions.
And I think being able to bring different solutions to different communities that sits in all of us. So I feel like an engineer today can really choose between, you really want to sit at a desk and do this? Or do you want to go somewhere in a different town where you can get your hands really dirty, right? And start to implement stuff.
But I think there's immense opportunities in design and building and architecture and that collaboration between technology and humans. I don't think you can pull humans out of this space, right? We're building for ourselves. So we play such an important role in that.
Lana: I think maybe a little counter to what some of the common wisdom that's going around now, especially if we think about the tool belt generation, like people going into these careers because they think that they are, they're quote, safe from automation and technology. I think you're right that technology will impact every career, like regardless.
I think there's a lot of opportunity and especially in this particular field of the climate resilience building. A lot of things that have to change. There's a lot of things that like the way that we are used to living is not really going to cut it anymore.
Even as a small example, these like recycled showers, they said one of the barriers to growth is, you know, that the installation, like plumbers have to learn how to install them. you know, so it's any innovation will have to come with learning. And then the widespread scale and adoption. And so I think to your point, as much as we can leverage technology to do that while also maintaining creativity. Even though in the beginning I said it's not about aesthetics, it also includes aesthetics and building an inspiring world that we want to live in.
So, yeah, so thank you so much, Raakhee. Yes, so thanks everyone for joining this conversation. And as we mentioned last week, we're new on YouTube, so we'll have a link in the show notes that our YouTube channel is at Horizon Shift Lab.
So, you know, come check it out, like and subscribe our channel. And in the meantime, next week will be, we'll our final bit on this future of cities and housing and migration. And then the following month, we'll look at the future of careers and work. So if you have any, you know, specific questions that you have that you'd like us to dive into, feel free to drop us a note on our website and or our YouTube channel. So thanks so much and we'll see you next week.
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