Emergency Preparedness Hub: Designing Decentralized Systems for Disaster Resilience

While advocating for designers as key contributors to disaster resilience, this article proposes an alternative infrastructural model through community-specific design. The design and prototyping of Emergency Preparedness Hubs, or PREPHubs, proposes a new model for disaster infrastructure that is dispersed, off-grid, and locally adapted, while operating as a system. Instead of single-function technocratic objects, they are designed as cultural objects and multi-use systems which provide an alternative to lifeline infrastructures that are often disrupted during natural disasters. As dual-function systems, PREPHubs operate on a daily basis as interactive public space architectures, becoming embedded in the daily lives of local communities.