Integrated Sustainability and Resiliency Assessment Methodology for the Design of Single-Family Residential Structures Subject to Wind and Flood Hazards

Abstract

Sustainability and resiliency have become important in shaping the criteria in performance-based design objectives in the recent past and will continue to shape future design as climate change impacts and disasters become more prevalent. While much work has been carried out in developing tools to aid in sustainable and resilient performance-based design there is still much work to be done. It is evident that while sustainability and resiliency have mutual advantages there are also inherent conflicts between the two design approaches. Some of the conflict relates to the robustness required of resilient design, which may have higher environmental impacts than traditional construction. Other conflicts have resulted from addressing these two design goals using separate tools and approaches rather than addressing them simultaneously through an integrated design process. This means there is the potential today for sustainable buildings to be constructed that are either vulnerable to hazards, which are avoidable, or resilient buildings that could be designed to be more sustainable. Weighing cost and structural performance has been an integral part of engineering design, and in similar ways intersections between environmental impact and structural performance can be addressed. However, sustainable and resilient development principals need to be better integrated together within design process so that intersections between the two can be identified and tradeoffs can be weighed. The models proposed in this dissertation are potential tools where sustainable and resilient design can be optimized within the context of the design and construction of coastal, single-family residential (SFR) structures subject to wind and flood hazards. Optimization is accomplished through the consideration of the environmental impacts of SFR buildings and by comparing alternate designs with varying levels of resilience. The comparison is based on multiple environmental impact metrics which are measured for key phases of the building’s life-cycle. Identifying the optimal design aides the designer in making objective, performance-based design decisions.