Resilient infrastructure, built assets and natural environments

Designing with future demands in mind

Infrastructure systems, buildings and natural environments that are prepared for climate change impacts are critical for a multitude of reasons. They improve the health and wellbeing of citizens, bolster regional or organisational economic performance and retain commercial value.

Climate change is fundamentally shifting the parameters for design and building performance. As temperatures rise and flood risk increases, our infrastructure and built assets have to accommodate new scenarios and challenges. Buildings and infrastructure systems that are resilient to the impacts of climate change will retain their value, whilst those that are not will become a liability.

Climate adaptation and mitigation measures will also rely heavily on the protection and restoration of ecosystems and the services they provide. Valuing ecosystem services and utilising nature-based solutions across regions and countries will provide long-term and economically-sound adaption measures in response to climate change.

Buro Happold has a world-class reputation for engineering solutions for the built environment, as well as being committed to the protection and enhancement of our planet and its ecosystems. Our technical experts can provide clients with design expertise and outcomes that consider the full range of climate risks.

Our project portfolio includes a community energy resilience scheme in Silicon Valley, developing mobility solutions for extreme climates in Riyadh and a major flood protection scheme that ensures the resilience of the Mississippi Delta to rising sea levels.

At a building scale, our expertise in net zero energy and water buildings such as the Cornell Tech Passivhaus or the Living Building Challenge certified Santa Monica City Hall East help prepare asset owners for increasing resource scarcity.

Our teams can support the identification of infrastructure networks across varying landscapes to create nature-based solutions to climate change. Our design services not only protect these assets and the services they provide, but they also advise on the attainment of environmental net gain. Our teams can also identify existing or emerging policy drivers for these measures, as well as funding mechanisms to support their implementation.

Our diverse specialist teams enable us to deliver innovative, integrated and holistic design services. As a result, we ensure that the infrastructure, buildings and environments in which you operate are not only safe, sustainable and resilient, but retain their long-term value.

Services we provide

  • Design project management
  • Asset consultancy
  • Civil and structural engineering
  • Building services engineering
  • Infrastructure engineering
  • Geotechnical engineering
  • Energy engineering
  • Coastal and maritime engineering
  • Flood risk management
  • Water resource management
  • Water utility and network design
  • Microclimate analysis
  • Environmental impact assessment and planning support.

Clients we work with

City authorities

We have a strong track record of combining from across our specialist teams to support public authorities at a local and national level to develop concept and technical designs for buildings and infrastructure.

Through these designs we can support public authorities to deliver the infrastructure that builds the resilience and adaptive capacity of their city and communities to the impacts of climate change.

For example our work on the masterplan for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games and legacy. Similarly, so we can support with the technical design and delivery of municipal buildings that are prepared and resilient to the impacts of climate change. City Hall East delivered for the City of Santa Monica achieves water self-sufficiency for example, responding to local water resource challenges.

Research and policy alliances

While there has been significant progress and research invested in the steps required to deliver net zero buildings, greater action and understanding is required of the actions needed to make our new and existing building stock and infrastructure systems resilient to the impacts of climate change.

Our specialists are helping bridge this gap through leading research, such as work with C40 Cities through which we sought to identify synergies between building decarbonisation and resilience.

Our work with GIZ sought to collate and share best practice across Germany and China on a wide number of issues, resilience of buildings and infrastructure was a cross cutting issue within these.

Finally our work with City of London Corporation demonstrated an innovative approach to adaptive pathway planning, helping asset owners identify when actions may be needed in response to climatic thresholds.

Asset owners, developers and their advisors

We work with developers and asset owners to design and protect assets, infrastructure and built spaces from growing climate risks, and to create and restore natural environments in order to provide environmental net gain and improve social equity.

Buro Happold was appointed by Folkstone Harbour Limited to develop and deliver an ambitious regeneration proposal for the harbour, crucial to this was managing the impact of rising sea levels on both the harbour and surrounding community. Similarly, dealing with the implications of rising sea levels has been fundamental to projects such as the Louvre Abu Dhabi and a new stadium for Everton Football Club located at Bramley-Moore Dock.

Talk to us

Project highlights

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View our latest sustainability report