Construction, Destruction and Reconstruction:
Living with flooding and other natural hazards
Introduction
Datum International was one of the first architectural practices to take up the issue of natural hazards. Nine earlier years of construction inspection as architect-on-site in the United States, Hong Kong and the United Kingdom were then followed by seven years as Leverhulme Senior Research Fellow at two universities to examine vulnerability to natural hazards. Direct experiences of environmental and socio-economic extremes, a prevailing concern for the needs of people, and a passionate involvement for construction were twinned with an aim to reduce destruction, all of which are now reflected in the images of this website.
The achievement of architecture, in its process as well as in its product, commences with responsible empathy and instinctive awareness for environments and user needs, followed by creative synthesis of structural competence and materials selection, cost and programme management.
Just as architectural modernism broke away one hundred years ago from the preconceptions of classical formalism, the same philosophy can be applied to many issues much wider, even, than those of architecture. Sequential problem analysis and solution synthesis, may not be unique to architects but is nevertheless their modus operandi. For this reason, architectural modernism has its place amongst the images representative of the activities of Datum International.
James Lewis RIBA is an architectural and environmental writer, a retired from practice Member of the Royal Institute of British Architects, Visiting Fellow in Development Studies at the University of Bath, an occasional External Examiner at the Centre for Architectural Research and Development (CARDO) at the University of Newcastle, a Registered Expert Witness (1997-2000) and Member of Development Workshop France.