How will your client’s business rebound after it’s struck by an unexpected and potentially catastrophic event? What about the whole community?

Entuitive’s Barry Charnish and Matthew Smith work with their clients to design for performance to support resilience in both organizations and communities. They presented on the subject at the Sanford Fleming Forum organized by The Centre for Resilience of Critical Infrastructure. The forum explored how the principles of resilience shape our structures, which in turn enable operational resilience within them and their surrounding communities.

What questions do you ask when designing for seismic, climate, fire, and targeted events? How do a building’s tenants affect your design considerations for resilience? Have a look at their presentation to learn more:

A building needs to perform when an event occurs – whether natural or man-made – to protect its tenants, businesses that operate within it, and the surrounding community. The potential threats that a building could encounter before, during and after an event need to be identified in the early stages of planning and considered during design. Many threats are addressed, to various extents, in the building code, but others require a more comprehensive risk assessment. How well a building performs during and after an event will have a major impact on a community’s recovery.

Many iconic, high-value buildings have been designed to withstand man-made threats (whether accidental or deliberate) as well as extreme climate events. A focus on performance-based structural and building envelope design solutions is a better approach than simply a prescriptive one.

Deb Matejicka of The Weather Network speaks with Entuitive’s Sean Smith in this video about how Entuitive is future-proofing against possible weather events in this video:

The drive for high performance in the built environment is changing the rules. New codes and standards are reflecting an increased demand for better performance. Nevertheless, performance-based design goes beyond the standards that code demands and moves towards a holistic approach. The shift is towards ensuring building tenants’ needs, as well as those of the surrounding community, are planned for and addressed in design.