On the design of buildings in relation to climate change

Climate change and its impact on the design of buildings are currently subject to concern. Large resources have been put into development of models for predicting future climate changes. However, considering the huge investment in buildings combined with their expected long service life, only few resources have been put into adaptation strategies for buildings. In line with other countries, Denmark is at the beginning of developing a strategy to address the effect of climate change on a broad scale. The present paper is based on one of the pre-studies for this work and focuses only on the impact on the design of buildings. It is shown how performance requirements for buildings may be taken as a starting point for a systematic evaluation of which climate related data are needed as a background for the design of buildings. Among the conclusions are that the lack of knowledge about the uncertainty of the relevant climate parameters is in itself a problem, and that the building sector should be more active in presenting its need for knowledge about specific climate related parameters.