Modelling structural performance and risk for enhanced building resilience and reliability

Abstract

Amongst the numerous challenges faced by the Architecture, Engineering, Construction and Operation (AECO) sector, there is the need to fulfil the requirements from a wide range of increasingly demanding stakeholders, which are usually seeking for some sort of demonstration of the degree to which their needs are fulfilled (e.g. certification of building performance), together with an effective protection against the risk of nonconformities or defective buildings (e.g. financial warranties or insurance covering the risks of various kinds of building failures). Performance-based regulations and standards that are progressively being adopted by the AECO sector in general and the building subsector in particular are including the risk information, following what other sectors and industries have done since the 1970s. The needs and expectations of the AECO sector stakeholders are more sophisticated and include future-proofing methodologies and provisions that anticipate the future events, the changes, the needs or the uses to prepare adequately, minimizing impacts and capitalizing on opportunities leading to business continuity throughout the whole building projects life cycle. Within the realms of building design and construction quality control (e.g. the Consortium of European Building Control) and of building political–regulatory environments (e.g. the Inter-jurisdictional Regulatory Collaboration Committee), it has been argued that there is a need to balance the relative importance of different performance requirements and prioritize actions in face of limited resources for planning and controlling the building structures resilience and reliability. The present paper covers physical, political–regulatory and organizational aspects, seeking to contribute with a suggested correspondence and calibration of performance and risk metrics for building. Building structures are used as an empirical case study to show how technical performance and risk engineering can be programmed defensively towards higher resilience and reliability.