Predicting the Unpredictable

by Marcy Marro | January 3, 2022 12:00 am

How do we accomplish this? The answer lies in designing beyond code requirements and specifying the right solutions for the right applications—designing not for today, but for tomorrow. We’ve tapped into the minds of engineering experts for high-level strategies that elevate occupant safety and reduce recovery time after extreme natural events.

Redefining Resilience

Resilience (ruh·zil·yns) is defined as the ability to absorb or avoid damage without suffering complete failure. But with increasing climate threats, we need to challenge and elevate this definition to create better outcomes for the built environment.

Kevin Smith, engineering manager at Construction Specialties Inc.[1], Lebanon, N.J., defines the future of resilience as the ability for a building to be immediately functional after an extreme natural event. “I think the term resilience has lost its luster. We need to shift our thinking, going beyond avoiding complete failure. We need resilience to mean absolute functional recovery. We need to engineer the built environment to not only withstand extreme natural events, but to be functional immediately afterwards.”

Let’s challenge the architecture and design community to not just meet building code requirements, but to start designing beyond them for hospitals, data centers and other critical infrastructure so that we can work toward a model where functional recovery is the norm. This will reduce downtime, increase safety, ensure that structures can survive more than one extreme event, and above all, save lives.

Testing Standards and Designing Beyond Mandatory Codes

“Building codes do not dictate that a building has to be functional after an extreme weather event or seismic event. If the building is still standing, and even if every floor can’t be reoccupied ever again, technically you’ve done your job,” says Smith.

This is why we need to look beyond building to code and leverage the product testing and standards that seek to create buildings which can recover and function quickly post-event. “There haven’t been tremendous changes in testing over the last few years, but what has changed is the widespread adoption of testing,” says Sean Carver, senior business development manager at Construction Specialties. “And research is continuing to drive product testing and code changes.”

“For instance, we are participating in a large-scale, several-story NHERI TallWood test. A first-of-its-kind earthquake-ready stair system will be installed to see how it performs under simulated seismic activity,” adds Smith.

As industry experts, the more we learn about how products perform during extreme weather or seismic events, the better buildings we will create—we owe it to the industry to share our knowledge through the development of better standards. Testing such as the Tall Wood Test is crucial to our understanding of how we should design and implement architectural products to meet or exceed code where needed.

Smith stresses that designing beyond mandatory codes is dependent on what you are designing, and the functionality needed after an extreme weather event or earthquake. He urges architects to understand how the overall design stacks up against the United States Resiliency Council[2] (USRC) ratings, which are more stringent than mandated codes. For instance, if you are designing a hospital that needs to be completely functional after an earthquake, design to meet the USRC five-star rating, which represents high resilience (indicating high safety, low damage and fast recovery).

Fortifying Buildings and Reducing Recovery Time

One of the most important components of functional recovery is maintaining egress and ingress—ensuring occupants can evacuate and first responders can access the building safely.

Imagine rushing to the stairwell during an earthquake, opening the door, and seeing that there are no stairs. They disengaged from the structure and crumbled, leaving you trapped with no way out and no way for first responders to get to you. “This is a scary scenario that is all too real. Standard staircases can fail during seismic events, a major problem that not enough people are talking about,” says Smith.

In response to this problem, engineers have developed a stair system that moves with a building during seismic activity, allowing the stairs to undulate without breaking and therefore preventing vital stairways from failing. This is a huge step in the right direction to ensure specifiers have the solutions they need to design structures that provide a quick functional recovery time and continuously maintain egress and ingress capabilities.

Another way to design buildings to be more resilient is to integrate extreme weather louvers, a building’s first defense against high-velocity, wind-driven rain. “Historically, extreme weather louvers have only been used in southern Florida, Louisiana, or coastal Texas. But now, we are seeing extreme weather louvers specified in the state of New York and other coastal regions where there are structures housing critical infrastructure such as data centers, generators, and electrical rooms,” says Carver. Extreme weather louvers adhere to stringent impact and projectile testing. They help to harden a structure against hurricane or tornado-force winds, thwarting debris, and protecting occupants inside.

Louvers are necessary in any successful commercial or institutional building of significant size for adequate airflow, circulation, and to allow the building to breathe. It is critical to specify the right type of louvers to keep crucial building components functioning properly, especially during an extreme weather emergency. If there is sensitive, high-value equipment, choose louvers with the highest performance possible to prevent water intrusion.

“One of the biggest misconceptions is that you should only use louvers where the building needs to actively intake air or exhaust air,” Carver adds. “Specifiers can add more louver area than required, which is a great strategy for integrating louvers into the aesthetic design of the building instead of having to design around them.”

For instance, an architect could specify a band of louvers around a building to create a visual blocking effect. In reality, maybe only 50% or less of the louvers are active, but adding them all the way around creates a much more cohesive design. Or, specifiers can incorporate additional façade elements like LEDs or perforated panels to create a particular effect or to set a mood.

Redefine Resilience For Your Next Project

Smith and Carver agree on one simple piece of advice to help specifiers create more resilient buildings: don’t try to come up with solutions to these complex engineering and environmental problems alone. The industry is here to help you—and wants to help you—design buildings that can withstand more than one extreme weather event or earthquake. “Let the industry experts and engineers of the world help you redefine what resilience means for your next project,” says Smith.

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Eric Sposito is the director of architectural louvers, grilles/shading, and Explovent at Construction Specialties Inc., Lebanon, N.J. For more information, visit www.c-sgroup.com[3].

Source URL: https://www.metalarchitecture.com/articles/eric-sposito-predicting-the-unpredictable-defining-resilience/

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