Resilient Design: The Architects’ New Standard of Care

In a recent interview on How I Built This, the developer, Syd Kitson, shared his vision for Babcock Ranch, and the story of its development and its first real test with Ian. In describing the initial resilience planning, he talked about designing with rather than against Mother Nature, for example, restoring historic drainage ways and wetlands. This is smart because according to the federal government, designing for resilience can save four to seven dollars for every dollar spent on resilient design strategies. So why aren’t more building owners and architects identifying hazard risks and adopting resilient design mitigations in their projects?

In 2018, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) updated the Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct, expanding the standard of care obligating architects to prepare the built environment for a changing climate by providing clients with buildings that are resistant to climate change. A recent study by HGA and the University of Minnesota Climate Adaptation Partnership (Laxo, A., Hoppe, B., Roop, H., and Cipriano, P., 2023), “Climate Forward? How Architects and Engineers Are(n’t) Using Climate Projections to Inform Design,” finds that most architects have not yet embraced this new expectation. The study’s key findings reveal that designing for climate change adaptation is generally not included in sustainable design services, and that most design firms are not regularly using climate projections to inform their designs. It also identified some of the barriers to addressing climate adaptation including limited demand from clients, and inadequate availability of data and expertise, and suggested that new codes and standards, and more training are needed to advance the practice.

Thankfully, some support for these highlighted needs is already available. In 2022, the AIA developed the “Resilient Project Process Guide” which guides discussion and decision-making between architects and their clients regarding resilience. The AIA also released “Hazard and Climate Risk: A user’s guide and form for acknowledging risk,” as a format for architects to review with their clients the climate risks and other hazards that might impact the location of a proposed project and agree on an approach to mitigating them. In 2019, the AIA’s Climate Action Plan articulated goals for climate mitigation and adaptation. This year the AIA is updating the Framework for Design Excellence to integrate relevant aspects of these resilience goals into each of the principles in the framework. Additionally, the USGBC identified resilience as one of the Future of LEED principles driving the development of LEED v5.

According to the federal government, designing for resilience can save four to seven dollars for every dollar spent on resilient design strategies. So why aren’t more building owners and architects identifying hazard risks and adopting resilient design mitigations in their projects?

Most recently, HKS, in collaboration with the AIA’s Resilience and Adaptation Advisory Group, developed the “Resilience Design Toolkit” to guide architects in making resilience an integral part of their projects. It outlines the process for incorporating resilient design considerations into each stage of the project lifecycle, from project initiation through occupancy. The toolkit establishes the critical context for architects and their clients to understand why resilient design is important and provides resources to guide the identification and adoption of location- and project-specific solutions to hazard risks. Perhaps most importantly, it emphasizes the evaluation of the costs and benefits of implementing resilient design strategies to ensure alignment the design intent and client expectations. The toolkit is organized around a five-step process, as follows:

1. Resilience Scope: The process begins with asking the right questions of clients in one-on-one meeting, in response to RFQs/RFPs, in community meetings, and in other forums prior to commencing design. This includes educating the client on resilience, articulating their needs and expectations, and refining the project scope to meet resilience goals. The owner should consider after a hazard event, does the building need to support short-term sheltering in place, longer-term passive survivability during recovery, or immediate continuity of operations?
2. Team Alignment + Planning: This step includes ensuring that each member of the project team understands the role of their discipline in achieving the project resilience goals and identifies any gaps where a specialty consultant might be needed, such as geotechnical engineers, coastal/marine experts, or resilient enclosure specialists. The toolkit also outlines useful pre-design kick-off and visioning meetings, and strategy workshops with suggested participants and agendas.
3. Identify Hazards: Next, the toolkit recommends a formal hazard assessment to identify the most critical risks and vulnerabilities to address. Risk is based on the magnitude and probability of potential hazard events, and vulnerability is influenced by the exposure and sensitivity of the specific project and site to potential hazards, and the adaptive capacity of the proposed building. The toolkit catalogs publicly available data tools that can inform hazard assessments and defines the primary hazards that should be considered. Third-party tools like RiskFootprint are useful in aggregating data from multiple sources into one risk assessment.
4. Integrate Resilience Design: Once material hazards are clear, the design team can develop project-specific resilient design strategies and then test their effectiveness using exercises outlined in this section. These include Benefit Cost Analysis (BCA) and Choosing by Advantages (CBA) exercises. Importantly, the integrated sustainable and resilient design strategies with the greatest benefit relative to cost serve to mitigate future climate change and adapted to the changes already happening.
5. Evaluate + Nurture: This final step recognizes the importance of the post-construction hand-off to the building operation and maintenance team and their role in maintaining the building’s resilience features and its readiness for potential hazard events. The toolkit also emphasizes the value of post-occupancy evaluation as a learning process, alerting building management to any weaknesses in the resilience plan and informing the design team on opportunities to improve their resilient design process on subsequent projects.

As the frequency, intensity, and geographic dispersion of hazard events increases with climate change, assessing current and future hazards and designing for resilience and adaptation in new construction and renovation is increasingly important. This is now part of the architect’s standard of care for professional practice, and a valuable service to clients. With increasing public and private expectations for climate risk disclosure, and the real risks of operational disruption and physical damage, resilient design is a good investment, preserving or increasing the current and future value of buildings.

Alan Scott, FAIA, LEED Fellow, LEED AP BD+C, O+M, WELL AP, CEM, is an architect and consultant with over 35 years of experience in sustainable building design. He is director of sustainability with Intertek Building Science Solutions in Portland, Ore. To learn more, follow Scott on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/alanscottfaia/.