What makes a building resilient to climate change?

By: Veneeta Paray

Climate resilience is often discussed through plans, targets and technologies. On October 3rd, the Waterloo Climate Institute hosted the Climate Resilient Building Tour in downtown Kitchener to explore what climate resilience looks like on the ground.  The event brought together students from Architecture, Engineering, Planning and Environmental Studies and included a tour of four different Kitchener sites: Reep House, Making Home at The Working Centre, Cowan Recreation Centre, and the Southwest Branch Library.

The day began at Reep House, a demonstration home operated by local NGO Reep Green Solutions, where the group learned about the low carbon and climate-resilient retrofits made to the house and garden. At our second stop, our hosts from the Working Centre (another local NGO) gave the group a tour of “Making Home”, a new low-carbon facility designed to create supports for developing social stability and climate resilience – by providing food, housing and medical facilities for community members in need. The third stop, Cowan Recreation Centre, offered yet another perspective: how a public building can support community benefit while responding to climate challenges – and stay within budget. The tour concluded with a tour and discussion at the building and grounds at the Southwest Branch Library where climate mitigation and adaptation were central to the architectural design.

At each stop, students heard from the architects and managers behind the projects and explored how climate–resilient design extends beyond individual buildings to consider broader community needs and challenges. How can design help protect occupants from extreme heat, flooding, high winds, heavy snowfall and storms? What role do the surrounding landscape and land play in a site’s environmental performance? And how can buildings contribute to community well-being, social responsibility and climate resilience while reducing emissions from construction and operation?

Those questions prompted conversations about both practical design decisions and the trade-offs involved in bringing projects to life. In their feedback, students described learning about topics including geothermal systems, energy auditing, rainwater use, zero-carbon buildings, and integrated project delivery. They valued seeing a range of projects firsthand and hearing from professionals.

The tour was part of the University of Waterloo Climate Institute’s Accelerating Climate Education (ACE) project, which supports the integration of climate adaptation knowledge and skills into professional degree programs across Canada. Local architect Carole Boucher helped to design the tour to ensure that students would be exposed to some of the most progressive examples of climate-ready building designs in our region. By bringing students into real buildings and connecting them with the people who design and manage them, the tour helped students understand how climate-resilient design is shaped by real-world decisions, local contexts, and community needs.