Next Saturday, October 17th, for International Repair Day, hundreds of events will bring people together to celebrate the power and promise of repair. Repair thinking has long animated this journal. Read on for some of our essential reads on the repair of our built and natural environments.

"Some will argue that I am asking too much of data, that a number is but one index and will never represent the full scope of loss. That may be true; yet given how the DINS count determines compensation amounts and rebuilding timelines, we need better methods of tabulating wildfire devastation."

"Knowing how many buildings burned, and how much of each building burned, is essential; but it tells us nothing about what the buildings were used for, who depended on them, and by what miracle of persistence they existed at all." Nicole Lambrou, on "What the Count Misses" in wildfire recovery:

Wildfire recovery tends to overlook damage that can’t be measured. In Altadena, the number of buildings that burned in the Eaton Fire says little about what residents really lost. “A structure loss count that allocates no value to social infrastructure is dangerously incomplete.” — Nicole Lambrou

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Wildfire recovery planning in the U.S. is almost always driven by the number of buildings that burned. But in Altadena, this count says little about what was actually lost — about the social services and care infrastructures — and about all those whose lives depended on them. From Nicole Lambrou:

Benjamin Mehigan is the recipient of the latest On the Brinck | Places Prize, our ongoing collaboration with the SA+P @unm.edu. Mehigan's project will focus on the Roadless Rule, and the impact its rescission would have on millions of acres of public land in Arizona, New Mexico, and across the U.S.

From our September newsletter: Mireille Roddier, on air-conditioning and the distribution of comfort; Linda Quiquivix, on the limits of North America; and Jen Rose Smith, on the tale of a blind man and a loon.

A tale shared by Native peoples across the circumpolar Arctic tells of a blind man who, with the aid of a loon, kills a woman he feels has wronged him. @sprucehen.bsky.social writes about the elusive nature of language, and the intricacies of a story that's been passed down orally for generations.

A tale shared by Native peoples across the circumpolar Arctic tells of a blind man who, with the aid of a loon, kills a woman he feels has wronged him. @sprucehen.bsky.social writes about the elusive nature of language, and the intricacies of a story that's been passed down orally for generations.

A tale shared by Native peoples across the circumpolar Arctic tells of a blind man who, with the aid of a loon, kills a woman he feels has wronged him. The story reveals the elusive nature of dAXunhyuuga’, the Eyak language, and the intricacies of a legend passed down orally for generations.

A tale shared by Native peoples across the circumpolar Arctic tells of a blind man who, with the aid of a loon, kills a woman he feels has wronged him. It is unsurprising that this bird, expert diver and water navigator, with its singular call, has come to shape so many Native stories of place.

After 9/11, thousands of tons of steel debris from the WTC was gifted to memorials around the country. "This relic steel is imbued with conflicting emotions: it's an emblem of closure, organizing civic attention at sites of solace, while also encouraging militarism and a fascination with strength."

In the aftermath of 9/11, the Port Authority gifted 1,800 pieces of steel debris to municipal memorials in the U.S. and abroad. "These installations physicalize and parcel out the memory of the towers and their destruction," wrote Samuel & Max Holleran. "They are imbued with conflicting emotions."

The U.S. just had its hottest summer on record. As did France, and Spain, and the UK. This past August was Earth’s hottest ever recorded. Reflecting on a summer of heat waves, Mireille Roddier shares how she’s kept her home cool, without A/C, and what such practices teach us about planetary care.

The U.S. just had its hottest summer on record. As did France, and Spain, and the UK. This past August was Earth’s hottest ever recorded. Reflecting on a summer of heat waves, Mireille Roddier shares how she’s kept her home cool, without A/C, and what such practices teach us about planetary care.

"We need to remember the everyday caretaking practices that predate constant access to easy energy," Mireille Roddier writes. "Keeping heat out demands the same care as keeping my plants alive." On the limits of air conditioning, and the need to realign our expectations of comfort indoors:

"Energy cannot be decoupled from capital, nor from its inevitable dissipation as heat. The further I displace this expenditure, the more I can ignore it or pretend it can be offset. I can try to make my thermal waste someone else’s problem, as if we were not all bound together." —Mireille Roddier