- Elena Bondareva, Thinc Projects
ssee09_what-makes-buildings-adaptable_workshop-outcomes
For a time now, attention has gone towards minimising the consequences of, or even reversing, climate change. More recently, there is increasing momentum around the need to mitigate the already occurring, and inevitable, consequences of climate change.
Examples of this momentum include Penny Wong’s $10 million research grant towards understanding human health impacts of climate change, and the strategies Australia will need to reduce the risks, and the emergence of related thinktanks, like the Climate Change Adaptation Research Network for Settlements and Infrastructure (CCARNSI) that the workshop facilitator belongs to.
Until necessity hits, most will keep designing, and refurbishing, buildings that operate property only in the current conditions. However, the more proactive players can minimise their risk, and avoid obsolescence of their stock, by adjusting these buildings that will not immediately become a liability.
The workshop participants will be invited to be proactive and to consider what attributes would make building inherently adaptable to some of the imminent consequences of climate change in Australia:
• Increase in annual average temperature, number of hot events, peak and extreme winds, daily rainfall intensity, sea levels, flooding and landslides, and fire danger index;
• Decrease in the number of cold events, rainfall, and relative humidity;
• Increase in blackouts and water shortages;
• Summer/autumn decrease and winter/spring increase in annual average radiation; Increase in immigration into Australia from economic, human rights and environmental refugees; and
• Redistribution of population within Australia due to rises in sea level.
Building lifecycles span hundreds of years. Yet we cannot with certainty foresee climate that far into the future. Knowing what makes buildings operate within dynamic climatic conditions would minimize our collective risk going forward and enable us to design buildings that continue to increase our quality of life.
BIO:
Elena Bondareva was raised in Russia, and was educated in France and Italy and has a research Masters is sustainable design from Cornell University in the US, where she investigated international evolution of green building rating systems.
Elena is Thinc Projects’ principal consultant in the field of Sustainability. She joined Thinc projects after over three years of work with the Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA), where her roles included overseeing the Green Star assessment, technical support, research and review; industry and internal training; Green Star adaptation to New Zealand and South Africa; and contribution to the development of Green Star tools for retail, education, healthcare, residential and public buildings.
Elena has won a number of grants and published research articles in peer review and public journals. Elena maintains research activity in the field of sustainability, particularly as it relates to innovation, change leadership and rating tools.