Resilient Built Environment: New Framework for Assessing the Residential Construction Market

Abstract

The residential construction market remains vulnerable to the environment. The architecture, engineering, and construction industry now recognizes natural hazards as an increasing threat to the vitality of the built environment. Resilience has become a central concept for assessing environment adaptations; however, how to assess resilience remains elusive. In an effort to solve this problem, the present work proposes a conceptual framework of resilient built environment (RBE), which focuses on one piece of the resilience puzzle: residential construction in the built environment. This paper also provides a case study to demonstrate how to use the RBE framework to assess the state-level minimum resilience performance for the U.S. residential construction market. Findings from the study indicate that 53% of states have adopted building codes with a satisfactory capability for resilience, which raises a need for new policies on resilience management. The case study validates the RBE framework as a valuable tool for describing and assessing resilience performance.