Document sans nom

The Disaster Resilience and Sustainable Reconstruction Research Alliance (Œuvre Durable) for its acronym in French) is a multi-university research team focused on vulnerability, resilience and sustainable reconstruction. It analyzes living environments through the theoretical and empirical approaches of vulnerability and resilience in the context of major disruptions, such as disasters, climate change and variability, socio-political conflicts, and major threats to existing economic stability.

[+] research objectives

The Disaster Resilience and Sustainable Reconstruction Research Alliance has three main objectives: - Analyzing the complexity inherent to interactions between factors of urban vulnerability and their impact of living environments. - Examining resilience mechanisms adopted and/or developed by communities and identify the necessary conditions for implementation. - Identifying actions, existing or potential, to reduce the vulnerability and increase the resilience of populations.

[+] theoretical and empirical approaches

Combining multidisciplinary expertise and research methods from urban planning, architecture and human geography, our contributions highlight best practices on vulnerability mitigation and urban reconstruction. Our team puts forward an original approach based on two complementary theoretical frameworks: - Vulnerability Theory Disruptions in living environments, when combined with social, economic and physical fragility, may produce devastating effects on the built environment (‘natural’ catastrophes, population displacement, housing crises, insalubrity, etc). - Resilience Theory Societies and living environments adapt to hostile conditions caused by sudden or prolonged natural, political or economic disruptions. Through this updated conceptual framework as well as case studies in Quebec, Latin America, Southeast Asia and Africa, Oeuvre Durable sheds new light on the complexity of transformations that test living environments in the North and South, and on innovative solutions to prepare communities.