Climate-Adaptive Buildings Workshop 1: Q&A Session

Climate-Adaptive Buildings
Evidence-based pathways towards high performance building in climate-vulnerable countries
In this video Dr Huda Elsherif and Andrew Simmonds answer questions from the first of a two-part workshop on Climate Resilient Buildings for Hot Climates at the AECB’s 2023 Annual Conference.
In these linked workshops they discuss evidence-based pathways towards better building available to climate-vulnerable countries. Using built project examples, they show how either the Passivhaus thermal comfort model or the adaptive comfort model can result in high performance buildings for different socio-economic and cultural contexts, and how the two approaches are not mutually exclusive if considered as part of a clear strategy over time.
Dr Huda Elsherif is a Built Environment Consultant with a background in architecture, sustainability and building performance research. Her PhD focused on exploring a practical design framework for climate appropriate housing in Sudan. Recently she has applied her expertise to a live project for a 10-person accommodation unit in an Eco-village in Tanzania. Working alongside Simmonds.Mills architects she used project data logger measurements provided by the architects to help validate her compact fluid dynamics (CFD) modelling of the project, advising on design changes during the build to further improve thermal comfort performance. She has published a number of her conference presentations on thermal comfort and has written a chapter for the Routledge Handbook for Resilient Thermal Comfort.
Andrew Simmonds is part time CEO of the AECB. He is an ‘environmentally conscious’ architectural designer, working with Architect, Adele Mills. Simmonds.Mills architects’ experience covers historic & contemporary buildings, innovative/traditional materials & the development of built environment energy efficiency solutions. They design sustainable low-energy domestic & non-domestic projects to AECB, Passivhaus & EnerPHit Standards and have completed several certified Passivhaus Buildings. This includes his family home in Hereford as an exemplar near-Passivhaus (EnerPHit) ‘whole house’ low energy refurbishment, monitored to check building environment performance & fabric condition since 2010. Andrew leads the development of the AECB energy standards, design and construction guidance, the AECB CarbonLite Training Centre and the AECB low energy buildings database. He led the AECB team supporting the Technology Strategy Board’s ‘Retrofit for the Future’ competition, & worked with AECB colleagues, setting up the Passivhaus Trust to bring to the mainstream the work of AECB CarbonLite. He partly authored and tutors for the AECB online CarbonLite Retrofit training courses.
His approach to design and construction projects is increasingly informed by the idea that Sufficiency + Efficiency = Sustainability: a resource efficient, socially and environmentally responsible approach that is exploring what could be described as 'radical simplicity'.
He collaborates with experts and researchers to publish papers and articles, examples include: The Wood from the Trees - towards a culture of respect with Lenny Antonelli and with David Olivier on the AECB commissioned report ‘Less is More - Energy Security after Oil’:
Climate-Adaptive Buildings
“A climate adaptive building shell has the ability to repeatedly and reversibly change some of its functions, features or behaviour over time in response to changing performance requirements and variable boundary conditions and does this with the aim of improving overall building performance.” Loonen et al.
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In developing this new programme the AECB is focusing on changing-climate and socio-economically informed building design strategies: with a particular focus on maintaining lifetime flexibility for buildings to be improved over time; whilst maintaining safe and effective multi-mode operation to cope with economic, societal and ecological disruption; in order to keep occupants safe and well at all times.
The Human Climate Niche
Many people living in climate-vulnerable countries will soon find themselves spending more time outside the human climate niche, the range of temperatures that have allowed human life to flourish for the past 6,000 years. To support climate-vulnerable nations - examples being Tanzania, Pakistan, Sudan and South Africa - climate resilient design on an international scale has become apparent as something we must develop and promote vigorously, and urgently.