The website for “Power: Infrastructure in America”, a project at Columbia University’s Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture, has included the essay “Working for a just adaptation”, by Todd Vachon and Zachary Lamb.

This essay explores the pursuit of equity and justice in response to climate change as well as detailed pathways for enhancing future outcomes. The authors argue that “Along with a just transition, there must also be a just adaptation agenda to ensure that workers and vulnerable communities are at the center of planning and design efforts to reduce the impacts of climate change. (…) Realizing this vision of just adaptation will require substantial shifts in standard operating procedures for both design and planning professionals and for organized labor.  The following sections explore how these principles have been mobilized in past efforts that might inform how adaptation planning can: 1) minimizes harm to workers, 2) maximizes gains for workers, and 3) joins the interests of workers and communities.”

Read the full essay here

About the authors:

Prof. Zachary Lamb is an Assistant Professor of City and Regional Planning at UC Berkeley. Prior to this he was a Lecturer in MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning. His work focuses broadly on the intersection of public policy, design, and environmental change. He completed his PhD at MIT in 2018 and held a Mellon postdoctoral fellowship at Princeton during 2018-2019. His dissertation research examined the evolving spatial and design politics of flood infrastructure in the delta cities of New Orleans and Dhaka, Bangladesh. He is also co-founder and principle of Crookedworks, a research and design firm whose work was featured in the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale and has received wide recognition, including awards from AIA New Orleans, AIA Western Massachusetts, and the Animal Architecture Awards. Prior to completing his doctoral studies, Zach received a Master of Architecture degree from MIT and a Bachelors of Arts degree in art history, architectural history, and environmental studies from Williams College. His previous work has included environmental policy analysis, green building and design, design-build education, energy efficiency, climate change adaptation, affordable housing, and post-disaster community development.

Todd E. Vachon is a postdoctoral scholar in the School of Management and Labor Relations at Rutgers University. Todd’s research agenda is a theoretically and empirically driven effort to understand the origins and consequences of inequality and the struggles of ordinary people to achieve greater equality and dignity. He has published widely on labor, social movements, and climate change in academic journals such as Socius, Social Science Research, Labor Studies Journal, and Sociological Forum as well as popular venues including In These Times, American Prospect, Labor Notes, and Truthout. Todd is currently completing a book manuscript about the labor-climate movement.