Investigation of the Sustainability and Resilience Characteristics of Buildings Including Existing and Potential Assessment Metrics

Environmental and social issues related to the built environment have prompted discussions about sustainability and resilience of infrastructure. Buildings in particular are a major consumer of energy and material resources and can be vulnerable to natural and man-made hazards. Poor performance of a building in a number of areas, like structural integrity and energy use, can result in disruption to the regular functioning of the building and communities, and additional resource consumption and impacts associated with operation, maintenance, and repairs. This study explored the current literature and consensus regarding sustainability and resilience of buildings, covering the background of sustainability and resilience, including respective definitions, characteristics, theories, and interactions between the two. The study then examined current approaches for assessing and enhancing sustainability and resilience of buildings, with particular attention to life cycle assessment, green building rating systems, building codes, and performance-based earthquake engineering assessments. It also explored resilience assessments and strategies applied at the community scale and their relation to buildings. Factors and metrics considered in the various assessment frameworks are then used to form a new hybrid framework allowing for the comparison of sustainability and resilience of buildings. The culmination of the study is an example of a proposed set of sustainability and resilience metrics spanning areas of resource efficiency, service provision, site impacts, indoor environment, and structural integrity, with each of the areas further including a subset of factors contributing to the perceived performance of a building. The proposed metrics present a novel approach to the study of tradeoffs between designs for sustainability and resilience.