Abstract
With the growing awareness of the environmental change impact on various spheres of the built environment, there is a shift from the rhetoric of sustainability and various mitigation measures to a sharp focus on the concept of resilience and adaptation tools. The debate on adequate urban responses to environmental change considers many different yet interconnected pillars: from adaptive and participatory governance, across flexible and agile planning instruments and tools, to a responsive design of the built environment. This paper focuses on a very local level of an individual building, seen as a crucial element of any urban pattern and, therefore, the critical condition towards success or failure in achieving urban resilience. Based on the environmental assessment of the adaptive reuse of the Z Hotel Holborn in London, we identify the design principles towards improving resilience. Specifically, we use the well-established Building Research Establishment’s Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) to 1) examine if the case building applies the measures to decrease its internal vulnerability and 2) reduce the negative effects of external hazards. Furthermore, we present the measures for protecting vulnerable parts of the building from damage and protecting exposed parts of the building from material degradation. A particular value of the paper is in providing concrete design components, which decrease the vulnerability index of urban systems, help increase urban resilience, and preserve local biodiversity.
