Sustainability Milestones: Adaptation and Resilience

Welcome back to Architecture 5 10 20! I’m your host, Guy Geier, Managing Partner of FXCollaborative Architects in New York. My guests for this podcast are pioneers and visionaries shaping the future of the built environment across various disciplines. Join me in exploring their remarkable journeys, discovering how they reach their current heights, and envisioning what lies ahead in the next 5, 10, and 20 years.

Join me for this episode as I have an insightful conversation with Ilanah Judah, a former colleague of mine at FXCollaborative and now Americas Climate and Sustainability Leader at Arup. It has been so exciting to watch her grow into a major voice in climate resilience, and she brings a wealth of experience and clarity to a topic that is far too often misunderstood or oversimplified.

Ilana unpacks what resilience really means in the context of the built environment and discusses why it’s not just a checklist of add-ons. She explains how resilience differs from sustainability (even though they are deeply interconnected) and shares why thinking about resilience as an unbroken chain is so important for meaningful impact.

Ilana and I talk through what a resilience journey can actually look like, from risk assessments and future scenarios to implementing and ongoing operations. She, in addition, reflects on how her career path shifted after Superstorm Sandy, why adaptation and emissions reduction need to be addressed together, and what is changing in how clients are thinking about climate risk today.

If you are interested in how buildings and systems can actually prepare for (rather than just respond to) what is coming, then this one is definitely worth a listen. Ilana brings remarkable clarity to a topic that can easily get lost.

Time stamps:

[01:43] - Hear how Ilana's career in architecture evolved toward sustainability and resilience after witnessing Superstorm Sandy’s devastation.

[03:17] - A desire to understand resilience led Ilana to academia, consulting, and leadership at Arup.

[06:46] - Ilana highlights the need for a shared definition of resilience.

[08:57] - Ilana shares how she differentiates between sustainability and resilience.

[12:31] - Ilana explains her thesis on adaptive mitigation.

[13:34] - We discover that Ilana's resilience planning starts with risk assessments, aligning goals, and relocation if necessary.

[16:35] - Developing a resilience plan requires prioritizing risks, budgeting, financing, and ensuring long-term maintenance.

[18:49] - Hear about how Ilana helps investors assess climate risks.

[21:15] - Ilana points to some of the benefits of innovative tech such as AI.

[24:47] - Professionals need to go beyond codes and historical data to address future climate realities in design.

[26:17] - Resilience is becoming more and more important to standards, with insurance and mortgage shifts possibly leading to major migration.

[29:42] - Ilana argues that resilience demands thinking across scales and identifying vulnerabilities and challenges.

Links / Resources:
Guy Geier
Instagram | Twitter
Ilana’s LinkedIn Page
Arup’s Website