Background

The climate is changing and this is having an impact on the robustness of buildings as the climate warms and we experience more extreme events. We can expect warmer wetter winters, hotter dryer summers, more extreme weather events and rising sea levels.

The buildings of the future must be safe and comfortable for occupants, while also using sustainable amounts of energy and meeting the building regulations. The commercial lifetime of buildings varies enormously, from 20 years for typical retail units to >100 years for some housing and public buildings. There is a need to both reduce the energy requirements of buildings over their lifetime and to maintain habitable indoor environments in those buildings into the next century.

Competition overview

Applications into the competition must have the client and design team applying together for funding to develop an adaptation strategy over the building’s lifetime to improve resilience and resistance to the future climate as projected by the UK Climate Impacts Programme (UKCIP).

The competition will be a one stage opening on 14 June 2010 with a closing date of noon 22 July and a value of £2.5m. The competition will run again in 2011 with a value of £2.4m.

The competition aims to build capacity within design professions in providing adaptation services and to encourage uptake by clients of strategies for adaptable buildings over their commercial lifetime.