Resilient Buildings are Sustainable and Protect Life
This webinar is part of the RAIC 2023 Conference on Architecture, now available to stream!
Topics: Climate Justice and Resilience, Sustainability, Adaptation and Mitigation
Length: 1 hour | What's Included: Video, Quiz, and Certificate of Completion
For communities to thrive, the buildings and structures that make up that community must be able to stand up to challenges presented by climate change, severe weather, fire, earthquakes, floods and other natural and human-caused disasters. This presentation will delve into ways effective building envelopes and precast concrete can contribute to sustainability and adaptation design and buildings that protect business, lives, lifestyles and livelihoods. What is the current state of the art of building science and how is it resilient and adaptive to climate change? Resilience is a building’s ability to endure normal loads for its normal life service. As we are well aware, the future holds abnormal loads and conditions for buildings. The need to refocus how we design is apparent. Rather than designing to the loading conditions determined by the past 150-300 years, we need to design to forecasted loading conditions and projected vulnerability to changing climate impacts. This should involve tracking hazard-relevant climate indices and their potential consequences to major building components. A typically 1-in-100 year event may now be occurring every 2 years. We need to change our reference points from past events (which the current building codes are based on) to climate change projections on micro and macro levels.
Three essential factors of an effective building envelope will be discussed:
- Understanding the durability of components within the building assembly on a micro and macro
- Continuity between all other building assemblies and interfaces
- Mechanisms of deterioration and their effect on building components
Whole building airtightness testing requirements are slated for inclusion in upcoming National Building Code revisions. This will be a large step in the history and development of the air barrier component of the building envelope and can feed into quality control and quality assurance programs mandated in local jurisdictions .Considering traditional building materials; there is increasing difficulty in sourcing these commodities that we have been reliant upon. What materials and construction methods are available to us to address resilient design? We will discuss precast construction as a viable construction method to achieve resilience and sustainability. Contribution of effective building envelopes and precast concrete construction to building climate resiliency and adaptation
Learning Objectives:
By the completion of this session, participants will be able to:
- Define the concept of resiliency and distinguish the contribution of effective building envelopes
- Delineate how essential components of effective building envelopes contribute to resilient design: Durability, continuity and mechanisms of deterioration
- Understand how upcoming whole building airtightness testing code requirements can encourage durable, robust building envelopes
- Identify and describe the role precast concrete construction performs in building climate resiliency
Subject Matter Expert:
Mr. Kevin Knight
International Institute of Building Enclosure Consultants (IIBEC), Formerly Roof Consultants Institute (RCI) BECx Subject Matter Expert (SMEs) Certified Building Enclosure Commissioning Provider (CBECxP®) Exam Item Writing Task Force (Active) 2020 Building Commissioning Association (BCA) Board of Directors Western Canada Canadian Standards Association (CSA) Building Commissioning Architectural Subcommittee CSA Z320 Building commissioning Task Group Leader for CSA Z5000 Commissioning Standard Energy Efficiency Task Group Leader for Z5001 Existing Building Commissioning for Energy Using Systems (Active) 2020 Committee member for CSA A440.4 Window, door, and skylight installation (Active) Underwriters Laboratories of Canada (ULC) Committee member, Air Barrier Materials and Systems Air Barrier Association of America (ABAA) Founding member American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) E6 Performance of Buildings Subcommittee member, co-chair for the Standard Practice for Building Enclosure Commissioning, and technical lead on ASTM E3158 Standard Test Method for Measuring the Air Leakage Rate of a Large or Multizone Building Society of Protective Coatings (SSPC) Manitoba Building Envelope Council (MBEC)
Building Science Practitioner, Tower Engineering
Kevin Knight is a building enclosure authority with over 35 years’ experience in the field of building envelope commissioning, testing, researcher educator and expert witness. He is currently engaged with Tower Engineering as a Building Science Practitioner. He is the Principal of Edifice Tutorial and the President of Retro-Specs a testing agency which was involved with research and development of testing practices for the airtightness, moisture resistance and thermal properties of building envelopes. Kevin has had numerous papers published and is a frequent lecturer on building science, commissioning, design and testing.A forerunner in the field of Building Envelope Commissioning, Kevin has delivered many training workshops on Building Science for Architects, Engineers, and Trades. Involved in commercial construction projects in both Canada and the United State and has collaborated with Federal and Provincial/State Governments, utilities, and private sector companies. Services include laboratory and field test of Building Envelopes, Commissioning, design concept, plans and specification reviews, senior consultant in diagnostic reviews and as an expert witness. Instrumental in the development of a Standards for CSA, ULC and ASTM for building envelope test methods and for the Commissioning of Building Envelopes. Co-Inventor of the Air-Sure™ Leak Detection equipment and method for testing the airtightness of construction details in single-ply membranes, both of which are Patent Registered in Canada and the United States.
Pricing A-La-Carte