APIA, Samoa In many Pacific Island countries, Western-style home construction has been gradually usurping traditional architecture. But returning to indigenous practices of building and planning communities could be key to creating the disaster-resilient communities of the future, experts say.

In the Samoan community of Saanapu, for instance, local people, working with architects and environmental experts, are designing a new community center that will blend aspects of traditional Samoan architecture with solar energy, water tanks and the capacity to shelter up to 200 people for three weeks in the event of a disaster.

At the new center, it will be very easy for the village to come together and have a meeting and solve any problem, and it will be passed on that way to the next generation, said Popese Leaana, the traditional orator of Sa'anapu.

In Samoa, 70 percent of the South Pacific island states population of 190,372 people lives in low-lying coastal villages, many of which face high risks of devastation bygale-force winds, flooding, sea surges, and tsunamis.

In Saanapu, a village of 2,000 people on the south coast of the main Upolu island, abandoned dwellings scatter the foreshore, bearing witness to the ferocity of an 8.1 magnitude undersea earthquake and tsunami in 2009. Across the country 5,000 people and 850 households were affected by the disaster, including 25 homes in Saanapu.

Three years later island communities were again ravaged by severe Cyclone Evan, which hit during Samoas November to April tropical cyclone season.

Experts predict things could get worse. According to the Pacific Climate Change Science Program, wind speeds of Pacific cyclones are expected to increase 11 percent this century, while rainfall intensity will go up 20 percent.

People here have to live with [disasters] and [previously] they built their houses accordingly, so we need to learn from the past and offer new solutions to improve things for the future, urged Samoan architecture graduate Carinnya Feaunati.

For centuries, she said, the Polynesian people of Samoa have built structures appropriate to the climate and put them in locations to maximize social cohesion and effective governance attributes especially important in times of crisis.

Traditional architecture is epitomized by the fale, an oval-shaped open structure with timber posts supporting a steep domed roof. All of the building elements are "lashed" or bound together, originally with a plaited rope made from dried coconut fiber.

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Samoa's architects look to the past to boost climate resilience

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is set to retake the witness stand in a lawsuit accusing the government of imposing illegally harsh terms in the bailout of American International Group Inc. (AIG), capping a week of testimony from the architects of the insurers 2008 rescue.

Maurice Hank Greenbergs Starr International Co., AIGs biggest shareholder before the rescue, claims in the lawsuit that the government illegally took equity in the company and that a 14 percent interest rate on the rescue loan was extortionate. Starr is seeking at least $25 billion in damages.

Bernanke, set for his second day of testimony today in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington, yesterday defended the higher rate, saying the $85 billion loan was intended to prevent the collapse of a systemic firm while the interest kept its shareholders from reaping a windfall.

The former Fed chairman, who was preceded on the witness stand this week by for Treasury secretaries Henry Hank Paulson and Timothy Geithner, has so far given terse, even dismissive responses under questioning by David Boies, and calling the lawyer for Starr a highly formal sir when answering.

He defended the easier terms given to banks and other institutions during the bailout. Low-interest lending was meant to get funds out into the system to improve liquidity, even though it was understood that the action might lead to a windfall for shareholders, Bernanke testified. There were offsetting considerations.

Earlier testimony and documents in the trial, which began Sept. 29, showed that banks paid less than 4 percent interest on their loans from the Fed.

Bernanke said that at the time of the bailout, he didnt know the basis for what a New York Fed official called a crazily high interest rate the government charged AIG.

I have since learned something about it, but at the time I didnt know, Bernanke said. I understand the overall goal was to minimize the windfall to the stockholders of AIG from being bailed out, but I couldnt go term by term and explain them.

Bernanke, Geithner and Paulson were considered the architects of the U.S. response to the financial crisis.

In their testimony, Geithner and Paulson likewise defended AIGs tougher rescue package and testified that a failure by the New York-based insurer would have been catastrophic for the economy.

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Bernanke AIG Testimony Ends Week of Bailout Architects

For almost 15 years, Treanor Architects worked on a restoration and preservation project at the Kansas Statehouse.

Now, only months after the project was completed, the companys work is being recognized on the state and national level.

The North American Copper in Architecture organization recognized the project as one of 14 recipients of the annual award for excellence in new construction and restoration projects utilizing copper, according to a news release from the state Department of Administration.

Treanor Architects submitted the firms work to the organization as well as to the American Institute of Americas Kansas chapter.

Vance Kelley, principal architect within the preservation branch of Treanor Architects, said the NACIA honor is a more competitive, more stringent national award. It is quite an honor.

The process for Treanor began in 1999 when the company was selected to create a historic structural report about the Kansas Capitol that, at the time, had been open for nearly 100 years.

There were deficiencies in the building, Kelley said. And more were discovered as the four-phase project continued.

Kelley pointed to part of the project where workers focused on the area where the copper meets the masonry.

Even though crews had spent time examining the structural integrity of the dome before work started, some problems couldnt be seen until the project was underway, which meant the discussion of a new roofing material had to be put on the table.

There was 120 years of deterioration and some of it we couldnt see. Years of expanding and contracting made the metal brittle and cracked, Kelley said.

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Local architecture firm wins awards for work on state house

SAPS 10111 by The Matrix Urban Designers and Architects
4SA Successful Submission in the AfriSam SAIA Award for Sustainable Architecture 2014.

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4SA Successful Submission in the AfriSam SAIA Award for Sustainable Architecture Shaping our buildings to shape our future through sustainable design elements while creating social upliftment....

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Pier Solar and The Great Architects part 1 Time to save your dad
For more information: http://www.ouya.tv/ http://www.ouyanews.us http://ouyalytics.com/ http://ouyaforum.com/forum.php http://ouyabrew.com/ http://www.ouyacentral.tv/ Today we look at Pier...

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Cassandra Bryan Design Client Testimonial | WDM Architects
WDM Architects speaking about working with Cassandra Bryan Design on their new custom website. Cassandra Bryan Design is a Wichita, KS custom responsive WordPress website design company.

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The aptly named Quake Column is a knurled pillar of 3-D printed concrete that combines an ancient Incan masonry technique with state-of-the-art manufacturing tools to create a structure that can withstand seismic shocks without mortar or rebar. Emerging Objects

The aptly named Quake Column is a knurled pillar of 3-D printed concrete that combines an ancient Incan masonry technique with state-of-the-art manufacturing tools to create a structure that can withstand seismic shocks without mortar or rebar.

Each block features molded handles and a code that tells the mason how the structure is to be assembled. Emerging Objects

Each block features molded handles and a code that tells the mason how the structure is to be assembled.

Other experiments include turning waste product like hardwood sawdust into a building material. Emerging Objects

Other experiments include turning waste product like hardwood sawdust into a building material.

The result is an object with a 21st century design, but a 17th century patina. Emerging Objects

The result is an object with a 21st century design, but a 17th century patina.

Emerging Objects experimented with a 3-D printer that produces objects made of sand and created this noise canceling wall. Emerging Objects

Emerging Objects experimented with a 3-D printer that produces objects made of sand and created this noise canceling wall.

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Architects Create a 3-D Printed Column That Survives Earthquakes

JAMES CITY Along with Tuesday's presentation on a new concept for a fourth middle school in Williamsburg-James City schools, the division's architects delivered a report on just how long the city and county can cope with current growth trends without expanding or building more schools.

Based on that report, dubbed the "10-year Master Plan Study," Chesapeake-based architectural firm RRMM recommended the division build a new 500-seat elementary school by 2019-2020 and build additions onto the high schools by the 2020-21 school year. The report, of course, recommends the construction of a new middle school to open during the 2018-19 school year.

RRMM relied on FutureThink enrollment projections and some of the school division's own research and reporting. RRMM's report said the nine elementary schools will reach their collective capacity by 2019-2020, and by 2023-2024, James River, Rawls Byrd and Matthew Whaley will be short 52 seats for students while the other six schools combined would have a 151-seat surplus. The architects recommended temporary classroom trailers, building additions or rezoning to cope with the shortfall, but said a new school would allow each school to operate at 95 percent capacity while limiting the rezoning needed to find enough space for all the students.

Similarly, RRMM said the high schools will reach their collective capacity during the 2021-2022 school year, and will be short nearly 300 seats by 2023-24. Classroom trailers and rezoning were possible options given, but RRMM's ultimate recommendation was building additions at the high schools to support 550 to 600 more students.

When it came to the middle schools one of which is already over capacity, based on enrollment data and the size of the facilities RRMM architects said the three current buildings would collectively be 553 seats short by the 2023-2024 school year.

"You could make up that deficit with classroom trailers or additions," architect Duane Harver said. "With each school having a deficit, rezoning would not be effective. You'd be moving around the negative numbers. ... We're proposing that a 600-seat middle school be constructed by the year 2018-2019 and that would extend your capacity to the ten-year mark and beyond."

Sampson can be reached at 757-345-2345.

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Architects complete 10-year analysis of school space needs