I enjoyed being part of a discussion recently on resilience in buildings organised by the Green Buildings Council. There are many interesting approaches and things can get complex quickly. My contributions included some of the following points. 

Siting

Some sites should not be built on. Traditional guidelines, such as 100-year flood lines are no longer reliable indicators of safety. Areas that once were thought to be safe are now vulnerable to floods, landslides, fire and other hazards brought on by unprecedented climate events. If buildings are built in the wrong places, difficult decisions have to be made when their future appears uncertain, something I explore in Building Adaptive Pathways. So avoid building in vulnerable sites.

Developing resilience

Simplistically, developing resilience can be addressed in two ways. There is the ‘engineered resilience’ approach that relies on strengthening infrastructure and buildings as a way of withstanding climate change. There are also more responsive approaches such as Building Adaptive Pathways which draw on a range of flexible and adaptable strategies to accommodate and respond to change. The second option is often overlooked, but in many cases, may be more effective.

Why be resilient?

In selecting your resilience approach, it is worth considering why you are trying to be resilient. This usually comes back to business continuity and the maintenance of specified services and activities. It is important to note that some prioritisation may have to happen, and some activities may have to be selected over others. This can be illustrated with some examples. A call centre, contracted to answer calls, must ensure that calls are taken and responded to. A school must ensure that teaching and learning continue. In both cases, resilience strategies must enable defined core activities to be maintained despite events, such as the flooding of buildings. If they cannot be accommodated, lower-priority activities are postponed. A focus on the essential functions, services and activities that must be sustained makes it easier to develop effective resilient strategies.

Resilient to what?

Conventional resilience strategies aim to understand climate change and respond to this. In South Africa, we have a few additional layers that need to be considered. Some recent events illustrate this. Transport disruption in Cape Town means that businesses, such as call centres, need to think about resilience strategies that keep businesses going even when employees have difficulties getting to work. Strategies may include moving workplaces closer to where people live – a strategy followed by Sigma Connected.  Organisations need to have ways of accommodating demonstrations and service delivery protests that are a regular occurrence in some areas. Extended water outages and power cuts, such as those experienced in Johannesburg recently, have to be considered and addressed. This may mean taking your building ‘off-grid’ for energy and water by using onsite renewable energy, rainwater and borehole systems.

Sustainability and resilience

Resilience strategies can make you less sustainable. For instance, measures to strengthen structural elements, walls, glazing and roofs to withstand extreme weather events and flooding consume more resources and energy and may limit building performance. However, other strategies, such as onsite renewable energy and rainwater harvesting systems, enhance sustainability. Where possible, resilience strategies that improve sustainability too should be selected. This is explored in Sustainable Resilience or Resilient Sustainability.

Social resilience

Social resilience refers to the ability of organisations and communities to tolerate, absorb, cope with and adjust to environmental and social threats. Developing simple social resilience strategies with a central focus on awareness and communication is one of the most effective and affordable ways organisations, and government, can strengthen resilience –  and this should be one of the first actions taken. Developing social resilience is explored in the Architecture of Social Resilience.

Co-benefits and future resilience

The examples above show it is valuable to think about the co-benefits of strategies and to select those that enhance sustainability in the long term.  It is also about building systems that will work, and evolve, with climates, economies and communities, as these change.