Building to Defeat Disaster

By Cass Jacoby, RCS Reporter.  

In a new webinar, Tremco discusses what building with resiliency looks like.  

Tremco LIVE is a video series hosted by Tremco Director of Building Science Marcy Tyler, along with Paul Hoogenboom, president of Tremco Inc. to educate architects, consultants and others on building envelope design challenges and trending topics. In episode 37 of Tremco LIVE, they discuss the importance of building resiliency during disaster situations with Build Smart America’s Julie Shiyou-Woodard.  

We want our buildings to be durable and resilient, which is why it is so important that we have conversations and uncover solutions about how to construct buildings to take a hit and continue operating afterwards.  

“I am from the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. Originally born and raised, so I've been in the Gulf of Mexico my whole life, so I definitely know what resiliency needs to look like, which we're not there yet,” says Julie. “I jumped into this nonprofit Build Smart America, around seven years ago. The nonprofit was developed by a group of thought leaders in the community that said, ‘Hey, this stuff keeps getting knocked down and we keep building it back the same way. There has to be a better way.’” 

Build Smart America has built a resilient, sustainable communities through its commitment to spreading the word on how to build better. Julie makes clear that her mission is to get people in structures where they do not need to worry about impending weather.  

“We test above and beyond code, and the reason why we do it is we know that there's anomalies in construction and we know there's exposures that maybe we can't know are going to happen,” says Marcy, highlighting why Tremco’s products are so often found to be solutions for more resilient buildings. “So we want to make it so that it is resilient and gets built right. We want to test the failure because we need to know the failure.” 

The key to resiliency is being able to learn from buildings in flood and hazard areas and educate others on how to live and exist in these zones. A smart house to Julie doesn’t mean Amazon’s Alexa greeting you at the door or a refrigerator that can make a grocery list for you, it means the structure can withstand wind or water.  

Watch the rest of the episode for more information on building to mitigate disasters. You can also see all their episodes on their RoofersCoffeeShop® playlist and register for the upcoming episodes here. 

Learn more about Tremco in their RoofersCoffeeShop Directory or visit www.tremcoroofing.com.