Climate Changes, Construction and Insurance

How should our contemporaries adapt to climate changes, which are commonplace? How to anticipate possible risks that may adversely affect our cities? What factors should be considered when accepting the buildings and other facilities construction? We asked to answer these and other questions Dr. Peter Mueller, Director of Moscow representative office of the Munich Reinsurance Company (Munich Re Group), General Representative in the CIS countries. The first part of the interview was published in the previous issue (Green Buildings, № 4, 2013), here we bring to your attention its extension.

Dr. Mueller, speaking about adaptation to climate changes, you have highlighted three aspects. Urban development aspect we have already discussed in detail. The second aspect – is a structural one. On what we should pay attention first?

It is all about the same natural factors, such as water, heat or cold, wind, radiation, snow. Summarizing, we can say that architects should stabilize the building in general and its separate elements, ensure their isolation and achieve structural flexibility in the design. The abundance of downfall, especially heavy rains, suggests fail-safe roofs design. More attention should be given to water drainage, and watershed should be carried out not only with the roof, but with the ground surface as well. Landscaped roofs and facades should be made waterproofed. Protective adaptations of buildings from heat and cold also require adequate insulation. At the same time, these changes suggest a completely different static of buildings.

Overheating protection problem can be solved by architectural means. The first thing to try is to re-use those construction principles, which allowed humanity to survive even in the pre-industrial era. Perfect insulator is an air and it means – high ceilings, availability of attic premises, the air gaps between the walls, etc. To prevent heat transfer in both directions are needed thick walls, balconies, the facade ledges, other elements those resistant to intense heat, reflective layers etc.

Certainly, it is important to correctly arrange the building in the cardinal directions. Rotating buildings proposed by the avant-garde architects, are not widely spread at least because of the extra cost of their construction and energy ensuring their rotation.

Natural heat emission should be minimized or used optimally. We must study the options for increasing the humidity in the summer period. There are many designs for green and white roofs and balconies, which can be planted decorative plants or vegetables.

A very important trend – the green facades, because facades of tall buildings reflect heat and light in a horizontal direction rather than vertically. Although, there is a possibility of designing facades that reflect at least part of thermal radiation vertically.

There are even ideas of filling glazed facades with living algae water to produce oxygen and energy. Swimming pools on the roofs of high-rise and other buildings also prevent overheating.

To ensure the stability of buildings in the storm winds, it’s demands exclusive standards for the design elements of facades, windows and roofs. In this regard, it is worth remembering the gale force wind swept over Moscow on 20–21 June 1998, when glasses in windows of many houses could not stand such pressure. So today is increasingly the design of future buildings tested in wind tunnels, etc.

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Interviewed by Anna Goldman