We’ve seen on the news people dying from indoor conditions during heat events, power outages, cold spells, hurricanes, etc. SAMUELSON: Well, it can be expensive to not design for resilience. GAZETTE: Given the increased cost to design and build for climate change and sustainability, and the risk associated with adopting new technologies that don’t have a lot of data behind them yet, are developers and property owners thinking twice about the ambition of their plans? ![]() So, we’re starting to think more and more about that. One way is to adjust the timing of our demand in buildings. There are different ways of aligning supply and demand. If we really are going to green our grids, we’re probably going to see more and more intermittent renewables, like wind and solar, which produce power at certain times. But now we’re shrinking the rest of the pie in terms of operational emissions, and we’re greening our grids, so the relative importance of the embodied emissions is growing.Īnother trend we’re going to see - we’re not there yet - is considering the timing of energy use in buildings and how it impacts greenhouse gas emissions. Traditionally, buildings were such energy hogs when they were running that we could kind of ignore the carbon emissions that went into building the buildings because they were such a small slice of the pie. First, there’s an increase in interest in lifecycle carbon emissions, meaning that you think about the greenhouse gas emissions that came from not only operating the building, but also from manufacturing and constructing, from extraction to demolition, etc. SAMUELSON: Much of the focus has been and is on operational energy performance or bringing down the energy use of buildings. GAZETTE: What aspects of climate change are consuming the most attention? Design teams and owners are realizing that their new buildings will become existing buildings and be regulated by these laws. And for new buildings, it’s changing decisions. That’s causing a stir because for the first time, existing buildings can’t simply remain energy hogs with no penalty. In Boston, BERDO 2.0 will require existing buildings of a certain size to be net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. These are among the first wave of laws targeting existing buildings. ![]() In Boston, that’s BERDO 2.0 and will be BEUDO 2.0 in Cambridge. I’m particularly interested in the new laws on existing buildings. I think we’re going to see the pace accelerate going forward. SAMUELSON: I’ve seen increasing focus, investment, and expertise related to climate change. ![]() ![]() Has that changed the way projects are planned, designed, and built? GAZETTE: There has been growing recognition that the effects of climate change are happening sooner and could be more extreme than anticipated. The interview has been edited for clarity and length. She spoke to the Gazette about how the field is responding to all the rapid changes. ’13, is an associate professor of architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design who focuses on architectural technology and how issues related to building design impact human and environmental health. The project, intended to be an environmental showpiece, faced potential retrofitting of its innovative green heating-power system by the time it opened in 2021 because of newly adopted city climate regulations. And the rapidly shifting scientific, regulatory, and technological landscapes mean that even the most forward-thinking projects can soon be rendered obsolete, which is what happened with One Vanderbilt, a skyscraper near Grand Central Station. These rules are adding extra costs to projects and sometimes require using relatively unproven technologies. Officials in many states, including Massachusetts and New York, are enacting new rules requiring developers and property owners to change or reduce the type or amount of energy used in their buildings, to incorporate certain construction materials and technology while excluding others, and to plan for rising seas and stormwater runoff. The push to prepare American cities and towns for greater climate resilience has become more urgent in recent years as scientific evidence of warming mounts and extreme weather events grow more common.
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