Preparing for Climate Change with Computation and Resiliency

摘要

As the potential impacts of climate change are better understood it is imperative that the building industry anticipate solutions that resist traditional settlement patterns and instead look to science to build for resiliency and adaptation. Human development has traditionally been around water for human health and commerce. As the impacts of climate change become more apparent these traditional settlement patterns may in fact be endangering cities and building occupants while causing climate refugees. This three-part paper starts with a summary of the findings of the International Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) 5th report specific to the built environment. Part two reviews an in-depth study the authors have developed that utilizes large-scale computing to evaluate building sensitivity to climate change. A selection of parametric models for building forms seen around the world are simulated to determine annual energy performance for current and predictive weather profiles based on IPCC's 3rd assessment report. These simulations required the use of cloud computing resources, and the results showcase how a building's end-use breakdowns vary in different parts of the world over time with the impacts of climate change. These results are being used by the SOM team to better assess risk and climate change impacts. Part three proposes solutions to the question that practitioners face daily: how can we design for resiliency when many codes and regulations are behind rapidly advancing climate change impacts? Mitigation, resiliency, and adaptation strategies will be reviewed. Further applications of future climate change predictive weather files will be discussed such as the impacts to building design and risk assessment.