Don’t sweat it: Designing for extreme heat and resilience

Over the past decade, we have witnessed an alarming rise in extreme heat, wildfires, wildfire smoke, drought, and floods, often labeled as "unprecedented." As extreme heat events continue to increase in frequency, intensity, and severity, the threat escalates for significant risk to human health, especially in disadvantaged communities. Schools and multifamily housing are particularly vulnerable to overheating, leading to adverse effects on well-being, educational outcomes, and health equity. Aligned with the LEED v5 BD+C EA credit to Reduce Peak Thermal Loads and the Passive House standard, this session will present integrated design and building enclosure strategies aimed at mitigating these challenges by reducing peak cooling demand, enhancing passive survivability, and improving climate resilience. Plus, review what are the health risks from wildfire smoke and what are effective measures to protect occupant health. Case studies in hot/dry and warm/humid climates - including a new school design in Washington state, school renovations in Montana and multifamily housing projects in Washington, Oregon, California, New Jersey, and Georgia - will demonstrate how advanced building enclosure design and thermal comfort modeling using weather files with the exact conditions of past extreme heat events along with the use of projected future forecasted weather files can improve safety and comfort during power failures, wildfire smoke exposure, and extreme heat events, even when faced with all three challenges simultaneously.