Resilience

[edit] Introduction

Resilience is the ability to adapt and respond to changing conditions while maintaining functionality.

Resilience to climate change, involves adaptation to possible impacts such as; intense storms, greater precipitation, increased flooding, longer and more severe droughts, melting permafrost, wildfires, warmer temperatures, more power outages, and so on.

In terms of the built environment, resilience can involve refining designs, stress testing solutions, designing adaptable and flexible structures, developing 'stronger' infrastructure and so on.

[edit] Principles of resilience

Resilience measures should be discussed and incorporated during the predevelopment and planning stages:

• Identifying hazards.
• Assessing vulnerabilities.
• Analysing scenarios and impacts.
• Establishing performance targets.
• Assessing how resilient interventions can create value in terms of underwriting building operations and mitigating harm.
• Balancing costs and long-term value over the intended service life.
• Developing lines of communication about potential hazards to build resilience between owners, operators and users.

[edit] Resilient design

[edit] Buildings

Resilient design strategies for buildings include:

• Designing and building structures that can accommodate the anticipated impacts of change.
• Strengthening critical systems to withstand extreme weather.
• Using future climatic conditions to model design solutions rather than relying on past data.
• Designing structures that will remain habitable in the event of power or energy loss.
• Building in manual overrides to reduce dependence on complex building controls and systems.
• Optimising on-site renewable energy supply.
• Rainwater harvesting.
• Composting toilets and water-less urinals.
• Selecting materials and components that will not present a hazard in the event of damage.
• Combining tested vernacular design practices with modern materials and techniques.

[edit] Community

Resilient design strategies at the community scale include:

• Building social structures that strengthen the community, wuch as gathering spaces, communal gardens, and so on.
• Minimising reliance on fuels sourced from a distance.
• Reducing the urban heat island effect
• Managing stormwater.
• Designing resilience into communications infrastructure.
• Encouraging community education programmes to instil greater understanding.

[edit] Regions and ecosystems

Resilient design strategies at the regional and ecosystem scales include:

• Maintaining and protect aquifers.
• Developing and strengthening regional transport networks.
• Developing regional renewable power-generation systems.
• Encouraging reliance on regionally-manufactured goods.

[edit] Find out more

[edit] Related articles on Designing Buildings Wiki

• BREEAM Adaptation to climate change.
• BREEAM Designing for durability and resilience.
• Building flood resilience.
• Design flexibility.
• Designing resilient cities: a guide to good practice (EP 103).
• Engineering in the 21st century.
• Engineering resilience to human threats.
• Environmental plan for building design and construction.
• Future proofing construction.
• Hurricane design considerations.
• Managing and responding to disaster.
• Property flood resilience.
• Risk assessment.
• Sustainability in building design and construction.
• Two steps towards a more resilient world.