ADAPT: Rebuilding place and agency after climate disaster
Researcher
CARD
Published
29 September 2026
Funding
Design Strategy Grant
Climate disasters are no longer rare or unexpected. Yet the way we respond to them seems to remain reactive, fragmented, and overly focused on the immediate. In the face of this, architects have the ability to play a critical role in recovery; acting as strategic thinkers, facilitators, and advocates who can help communities navigate uncertainty.
Through a series of essays, interviews, and photographs, ADAPT brings together voices from across architecture, academia, policy, and community organising to explore recovery as a human, complex and non-linear process.
The work highlights how housing, governance, and risk intersect with trauma, inequality, and place, and asks how architects might engage more meaningfully with communities beyond, and before, climate disasters.
Contributors include Carol Marra, David Sanderson, Elizabeth Mossop, Leeanne Marshall, Nikhila Madabhushi, Rachel Steffensen, Sean Lees, Christy Bryar, and Timothy Heffernan.
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This book was written at a time when climate disasters are no longer a rarity, or the exception, but rather, a recurring event in Australian life. It is undeniable that climate change has radically reshaped our built environment. Every summer in Australia, we directly observe how vulnerable our built environment and communities are to the growing impacts of climate change.
The 2019-2020 Black Summer bushfires marked a profound turning point in the way we began to think about our role and responsibility as architects. We watched entire communities devastated by fire. We witnessed an unprecedented scale of ecological loss. And, we were reminded how impossible it is to separate architecture from the realities of a changing climate.
This has fundamentally impacted how we approach architecture. We understand our work can’t be limited to designing individual buildings within a vacuum, it must engage with its broader environmental and social context. We know that architecture has the potential to severely worsen, or radically improve the lives of the communities it exists within. Architecture is fundamentally a social act; it is intrinsically connected to the way people inhabit space and interact with each other. This objective is often sharpened in the context of disasters and post-recovery, where buildings become the backdrop, and community cohesion becomes so critical.
As young architects, we have started to question what role we can play in this new reality. Both in preparation for the inevitable and in playing a meaningful part in the recovery process. For the past year and a half, CARD has spoken to a wide range of people, from design professionals, insurance brokers, builders, government representatives, academics and community organisations. We entered this space naively, acknowledging that our role is to listen and absorb.
We have been open to hearing from diverse opinions and perspectives, but often with the same major question: what can architects do to help?
A recurring idea that has emerged is that, within this context, the most valuable contribution architects can make lie beyond the design of buildings. Their skills in strategic thinking, coordination, and spatial design are well suited to navigating complex systems and aligning diverse stakeholders. This includes translating technical information, advocating for design-led thinking, and supporting communities in recovery. Expanding the role of architects in this way requires a shift from an object-focused practice to one that is process-oriented and community focused. This is not an easy or quick change, but rather a fundamental transformation of the concept of what an architect is or does.
Thank you to the Alastair Swayn Foundation and to Robert Caulfield for supporting this work through his Graduate Research Scholarship award from the Victorian Chapter of the Australian Institute of Architects. Thank you to all the people that we have had the pleasure of speaking with over this time.
We hope you enjoy this collection of interviews and photographs.
TAHJ ROSMARIN AND JIMI CONNOR
