Future vernaculars towards a process-based dwelling ecosystem in pacific atoll nations

Given the already-devastating effects of climate change in Pacific atoll nations, there is an urgency to establish frameworks that support systemic sustainability and resilience within these regions. The evolution of vernacular architecture and community processes needs to be investigated and analyzed. Fundamentally, there is little understanding of: (1) what resilience means, in the context of architecture, building cultures, and localized networks; (2) the intricacies of socioeconomic, cultural, and political fabrics within which projects are pursued; and (3) how to balance soft and rigid approaches to achieving high-performance building and community solutions, while still remaining low impact in the context of localized material loops and building cultures. This paper aims to address and expand upon these points, specifically within the context of the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI), in order to formulate a robust, flexible, and self-refining framework for the production of sustainable and resilient housing. It emphasizes sociocultural practices based around housing construction and design to develop culturally supportive housing, local capacity, and recenter localized knowledge systems in housing design. Housing adaptations for remote and urbanized atolls are explored through capacity building and knowledge exchange, collaborating with cultural stakeholders in the RMI. Field surveys of housing across four atolls provide analysis of current building practices, material use, and cultural appropriateness, while a new Dwelling Ecosystem prototype tests new integrations of local knowledge and materials, and scalability