Robust and resilient buildings: A framework for defining the protection against climate uncertainty

Abstract

The design of high-performance buildings has been questioned for their actual performance in operation, where the impact of external perturbations such as occupant behavior and climate has proved to be prominent. These sources of variability, called aleatory uncertainties, are inherent variations of nondeterministic systems and are irreducible. Therefore, one of the main approaches to deal with these uncertainties is to consider them as noise during the design phase. The goal of the design is hence achieving a solution whose performance is least sensitive to the noise. This specific design process is called robust design. In this study, a prospect of climate conditions that a building might face during its lifespan is identified. However, although robust design can support the design of building variants whose performance is insensitive to typical climate conditions and also predictable extreme climate conditions, these building variants cannot be considered protected in case of unforeseeable extreme events. During such events, another property called resilience is required, which focuses on withstanding and recovering during and after the occurrence of the event. This study reviews the concepts of robustness and resilience and organizes them into a framework that clarifies their relationships in the protection of buildings against climate uncertainties.