Future-Proofing the Existing Building Stock: A Multi-Hazard Scenario for the Lombardy Region

In recent years the frequency and intensity of natural and meteorological disasters have grown and with it their impacts on the built environment on both the urban scale and the individual building scale. Upon observing these events it becomes evident that the expected performances from buildings have increased and endeavors must be made to ensure their resilience towards a rapidly changing future scenario. In this context, the topic of building resilience is discussed in a comprehensive state-of-the art focusing on the existing building stock and its findings are hereby summarized. This paper begins with a summary of the systematic bibliometric literature review conducted to recognize research trends and keywords to better define the scope of the research. Relevant studies were retrieved and categorized to help formulate the research question. It was understood early on that resilience and sustainability are intertwined and that a truly sustainable building must be resilient towards hazards and disasters, and as a consequence, an important question presented itself: what the best approaches are for achieving an overall building resilience and what improvements can be made, especially considering the challenges for the existing building stock. This paper presents the preliminary results of a literature review finalized to understand the typical damage mechanisms of the different hazards in the Lombardy Region identifying the most vulnerable building typologies and components as well as potential technical solutions (i.e. retrofit techniques) and mitigation strategies. The aim is to identify the main parameters that have to be integrated in a multi-hazard resilient building design framework that consider the long-term impact of climate change on a building and its occupants in addition to structural integrity aspects due to natural disasters that are currently covered by many studies.