CLIMATE CHANGE, EXTREME WEATHER, AND RESILIENT BUILDING DESIGN

Over the past several years, the general consensus in the building and development community has been that we have moved beyond needing to design just for sustainability and instead need to shift our attention to resiliency. According to a 2018 Urban Land Institute (ULI) article, “The insurer Munich Re estimates that over the past 30 years, weather-related catastrophes cost more than $1 trillion in North America alone—an average of more than $34 billion per year. Insured losses increased from $9 billion in the 1980s to $36 billion in the 2000s. The Rockefeller Foundation estimates that it costs 50 percent more to build back after a disaster or crisis than it does to build from the start to withstand the shock.”¹² Given those numbers, insurers are frequently considering resilient design when they assess premiums. Buildings designed to mitigate climate-change hazards are considered a good thing.

The first step, however, is accepting—and genuinely understanding—that it’s not our imagination that extreme weather events are increasingly common and severe. While climate change may be viewed as a controversial subject by some, the evidence of a changing climate is undeniable. Countries around the world have been experiencing once-in-a-lifetime and 100-year storms, often multiple times and within several years. In the United States for example, Hurricanes Florence and Michael hit Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas within one month of each other, and the storms itself tracked further north, impacting communities in Virginia and elsewhere.

Organizations such as the U.S. Green Building Council have begun to address resilience as well, with a new (as of 2019) Rating Guidelines for Resilient Design and Construction. The RELi 2.0 Rating System (RELi 2.0) is “a holistic, resilience-based rating system that combines innovative design criteria with the latest in integrative design processes for next-generation neighborhoods, buildings, homes, and infrastructure.”¹³ In addition to making use of existing sustainable and regenerative guidelines such as LEED, RELi 2.0 introduces socially and environmentally responsible credits for emergency preparedness, adaptation, and community vitality.

Architects, engineers, developers, and first responders, as well as the average citizen, need to begin to recognize that when it comes to new building design and infrastructure, expecting the unexpected in terms of extreme weather is the way to go. And resilient design needs to play a key role in new project design and development.

ZUCKERBERG SAN FRANCISCO GENERAL HOSPITAL AND TRAUMA CENTER

In 2016, construction of the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center was completed, marking a milestone in a 150-year history of the hospital. The new, nine-story acute-care facility builds on a tradition of medical care, dating back to the city’s first public hospital in 1872, which survived the Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906. That event destroyed over 80 percent of the city and killed roughly 3,000 people. And yet, the hospital withstood the quake and served as a shelter and treatment center to those affected by the disaster.¹⁴

The history of the hospital is poignant in regard to the new facility, which was designed with some of the strictest seismic standards in the country. The hospital sits atop the San Andreas Fault Line, and California’s building codes mandate that in the event of an earthquake, hospitals must remain open. Locally known as “The General,” the hospital serves over 100,000 people every year and is recognized as a world-class medical training and research facility.

Fong & Chan Architects embraced these code requirements along with a goal of obtaining LEED Gold certification. The facility was designed and built with as many environmentally friendly products as possible, along with some of the most advanced seismic designs available.

The General is one of the largest base-isolated structures in the United States, and the technology used to address the seismic loads allows it to glide 30 inches in every direction during a seismic event. That’s 2.5 feet—in every direction!

To accomplish this feat, the architects selected high-performance EJCs that allowed for the extreme movement. Other notable features include a multi-axial corridor cover (MACC) system that connects the new hospital tower to the existing facility, as well as exterior moat covers that physically and visually connect the sidewalks and landscape. Inside the building, entrance mats and grids were used to help keep the facility dirt-free and trap moisture. Along corridors, walls were installed with handrails, crash guards, and corner guards to improve the resiliency of high-use areas and to protect the walls.

Features not necessarily linked to resiliency included infill sunshades that allow filtered light into the building, thus reducing both heat and glare—and reducing energy use—all while improving the indoor experience for hospital staff and patients.

The result of these many different design choices is a structure that meets very high seismic standards, is incredibly durable both inside and out, and also addresses green building design goals of promoting healthy indoor air quality, lower energy use, and ultimately seeking LEED Gold certification.

All in all, the building serves as an excellent example of how a structure can be designed to address critical resiliency issues such as seismic events and day-to-day use, all while enhancing the local community with an aesthetically creative design.