An Adaptive Framework for Assessing Climate Resilience in Buildings

Abstract

As global climates continue to evolve, the urgency to enhance built environments against environmental challenges becomes more pronounced. Inspired by the Smart Readiness Indicator (SRI) -a widely adopted index for assessing how smart a building is- this paper introduces a framework designed to assess and evaluate the climate resilience of buildings. Unlike the static approach of the SRI, our framework employs dynamic weighting that considers the specific climatic conditions of a building's location. The paper explores climate exposure analysis, examining different climate hazards and incorporating weather data for comprehensive exposure assessment. This initial step provides a thorough understanding of the environmental challenges buildings face. Subsequently, we detail the building climate resilience impact assessment, offering a structured and quantifiable method for assessing and benchmarking the resilience of various building typologies. Through an extensive evaluation across six general categories of building elements, including the building envelope and energy systems, our methodology offers detailed insights into buildings' climate resilience and their capacity to endure specific climate hazards. The framework's application is demonstrated through pilot cases, with results from the climate exposure analysis and the climate resilience assessment presented. Finally, the paper summarizes key findings, highlighting the framework's role in promoting climate-resilient building practices and the critical importance of robust assessment tools for evaluating building resilience in the face of changing environmental challenges.

Keywords: Climate Resilience Assessment, Climate Exposure Analysis, Environmental Adaptation, Resilient Buildings