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Rethinking Resilience: Co-development of six Community Resilience Hubs in Puerto Rico
Client
Flamboyán Fund for the Arts
Date
2023-2025
Location
Puerto Rico
Services
Program Strategy
Participatory Design Facilitation
Hardware Design + Fabrication Coordination
Service Design
Physical Space Design
Selected Methods
Research
Participatory Design
Stakeholder Mapping
UX Design in Physical Spaces
Sensory Design
Service Design
Journey Mapping
Low-Fidelity Cardboard Prototyping
Impact Areas
Community-centered Climate Resilience
THE DREAM
Climate disasters and emergency events not only affect a community’s physical safety, they also take a toll on residents’ mental health. Arts and cultural programming has been shown to foster community connection, healing, and emotional relief. Yet these activities are often among the first to be defunded or canceled during emergencies or disasters. At the same time, local cultural organizations are frequently some of the first groups to respond after a crisis.
In 2023, Flamboyán Foundation, with support from the Mellon Foundation, launched the Cultural Response Hubs initiative: a network of Community Resilience Hubs designed to provide not only essential emergency services in the aftermath of climate impacts, but also arts and cultural programming. We selected six local cultural organizations across Puerto Rico and - through a participatory design and implementation process - prepared them to provide essential emergency and mental health support when communities need it the most.
OUR ENGAGEMENT
We completed this project in two phases:
Phase 1: Design and Planning (2023)
Phase 2: Implementation (2024-2025)
Throughout the project, PamLab led:
-The Strategy, Leadership and Project Management of Phase 1
-The Participatory Design of each Resilience Hub
-The Co-design, Engineering and Fabrication of all custom hardware equipment for the Resilience Hubs
-The Experience and Service Design for each hub
OUTCOMES AND IMPACT
In 2025, the team celebrated the Open House of our Resilience Hubs, marking the successful implementation of the initiative.
The completed work included:
-A fully equipped emergency shelter in a previously abandoned building
-Solar energy systems
-Portable device charging stations
-Water storage systems
-Remodeled kitchens and refrigeration
-Portable community gardens
-Satelite phones and Ham Radio
-Capacity building sessions and Emergency Plans for each organization
In addition, our impact assessment showed significant improvements across participating organizations, including increased emergency preparedness and planning capacity, stronger collaboration with community members and community leaders, expanded service provision capabilities, improved availability of emergency supplies, and enhanced support for artists and cultural workers during emergencies.
