Climate change is leading to an increase in the frequency, intensity, and duration of severe weather events, including wildfires, and extreme hot and cold weather events. The impact on building occupants has been further exacerbated by compound events, which are the primary cause of major power outages. This creates a significant threat to energy infrastructure and critical services that rely on a reliable electricity supply, thereby compromising the ability of buildings to maintain safe indoor environments. Moreover, these conditions pose even greater health risks to vulnerable populations, as well as underserved and overburdened communities. These challenges underscore the urgent imperative to address global warming, climate change, and the increasing energy demand. This proposal presents 10 questions that highlight the critical issues of performance-driven buildings for occupants in the context of climate change events. The proposed questions and their answers aim to provide insights into current and future research and applications for healthy buildings and thermal resilience, and more importantly, to inspire significant new questions in the field.
Question 1: What have climate change events taught us about thermal resilience and health in buildings?
Question 2: What motivates the need for building energy simulation in enhancing thermal resilience and health?
Question 3: What approaches can be used to assess buildings from thermal resilience, health, and energy performance holistically?
Question 4: How can high-performance buildings incorporate health and thermal resilience requirements?
Question 5: What specific metrics should be included in building energy modeling by taking health and thermal resilience into account?
Question 6: How should climate change scenarios be incorporated for comprehensive thermal resilience and healthy building simulation?
Question 7: How can emerging technologies (e.g., AI) help achieve high-performance, healthy, and resilient buildings?
Question 8: How does socioeconomic status impact occupant resilience and health in buildings?
Question 9: What should be the simulation scope, occupant level, building level or urban scale?
Question 10: What are the knowledge gaps and challenges in this area?
