ABSTRACT
The 2010 report, Design for Future Climate: Opportunities for adaptation in the built environment, divided the impacts on the construction of buildings into three principal sections: structural stability, below and above ground; weatherproofing, detailing and materials; and work on site. While UKCP09 includes projections for all of the principal climate parameters that affect environmental design, there are gaps for factors that affect construction, particularly for wind and soil moisture. Foundations need to be designed for the lifetime of a building, as remedial underpinning work will inevitably be significantly more expensive than a more robust foundation design at construction stage. A number of teams considered the safety factors on which existing structural design codes are based. UK structural design is governed by Eurocodes, which establish principles and requirements for both safety and serviceability. Triangle Architects, working on the British Trimmings extra-care scheme, highlighted a discrepancy between the original and retrofitted elements of a design.
