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Despite decades of social science research into disasters, practice in the field continues to be informed largely from a technical perspective. The outcome is often a perpetuation of vulnerability, as narrowly defined technical interventions fail to address or recognize the ethical, historical, political and structural complexities of real-world community vulnerability and its causes. The authors propose that addressing this does not require a rejection of technical practice, but its evolution into a critical technical practice – one which foregrounds interdisciplinarity, inclusion, creativity and reflexivity, as means to question the assumptions, ideologies and delimited solutions built into the technical tools for understanding risks.

The authors present findings from three events they designed and facilitated, aimed at rethinking the engineering pedagogy and technical practice of disaster risk management. The first was a 2-day “artathon” that brought together engineers, artists and scientists to collaborate on new works of art based on disaster and climate data. The second was the Understanding Risk Field Lab, a 1-month long arts and technology un-conference exploring critical design practices, collaborative technology production, hacking and art to address complex issues of urban flooding. The third was a 4-month long virtual workshop on responsible engineering, science and technology for disaster risk management.

Each of these events uncovered and highlighted the benefits of interdisciplinary collaboration and reflexivity in disaster risk modeling, communication and management. The authors conclude with a discussion of the key design elements that help promote the principles of a critical technical practice.

The authors propose “critical technical practice” which foregrounds principles of interdisciplinarity, inclusion, creativity and reflexivity, as a means to question the assumptions, ideologies and delimited solutions built into the technical tools for understanding climate and disaster risk.