Mobilizing Building Adaptation and Resilience (MBAR)

Mobilizing Building Adaptation and Resilience (MBAR) is a multi-year, multi-stakeholder knowledge and capacity building project led by BC Housing, with participation and contribution from over 30 organizations, including national, provincial, and local agencies; and industry partners.

Pilot Projects

Building owners, construction experts, and design professionals are invited to join MBAR

Interested in supporting the MBAR Initiative? You can apply to have your current or planned building project included in MBAR as a pilot project or offer your expertise to support MBAR pilot projects by completing the relevant Expression of Interest form below:

Expression of Interest - Consultants

Expression of Interest - Pilot Projects

Email your completed Expression of Interest form to mbar@bchousing.org

Mobilizing Building Adaptation and Resilience (MBAR) helps people protect their homes and buildings in the face of climate change. Pilot projects get access to resources and expertise about renovations and building design to help buildings remain comfortable, safe, and resilient even with heavier rainfall, hotter summers, wildfires, flooding, and windstorms.

MBAR addresses climate change impacts on buildings and neighborhoods. Knowledge created by the MBAR initiative can help building owners address and minimize the impacts of climate change on buildings and people living in them. Our easy-to-read one-page resources are designed to help your design team plan renovations or design a new building, providing guidance on:

Site strategies
Design strategies
Operations strategies
Community benefits
Potential design conflicts
Costs and impacts

MBAR Resources: Design Discussion Primers

Issues to consider when planning and designing your building:

Design Discussion Primer - Air Quality
Contaminants such as mould, major roads, and building materials, from inside and outside a building can affect indoor air quality. Climate scientists expect an overall increase in wildfire smoke and summer ozone. Exposure has been linked to short and long-term health effects.

Design Discussion Primer - Chronic Stressors
Climate change driven chronic stressors include freeze-thaw cycles, wind-driven rain, wetting and drying, frost penetration, wind-driven abrasive materials, atmospheric chemical deposition on materials, broad-spectrum solar radiation, and ultraviolet (UV) radiation.

Design Discussion Primer - Fire
Includes unplanned wildfires that threaten buildings and fires that start in urban areas to spread and threaten wilderness. Projected to increase in severity and magnitude as a result of climate change.

Design Discussion Primer - Flood Events
Flooding includes extreme rainfall and snow and glacial melt affecting sea, lake and river levels. Impacts can include weakened building foundations, contamination from sewage, and property loss. Flooding is expected to happen more often with climate change.

Design Discussion Primer - Heat Waves
Heat waves are expected to increase in frequency and intensity affecting human health and well-being. Heat waves can be very intense in urban settings where the clustering of heat-absorbing structures and buildings can create a “heat island” effect.

Design Discussion Primer - Power Outages and Emergencies
Extreme temperatures and storms trigger high energy use to cool, heat, or otherwise maintain safety and comfort, especially in buildings with inadequate thermal resilience. High demand can overwhelm the power grid, while storms and floods can damage powerlines and transfer stations.

Design Discussion Primer - Seismic Events
B.C. is considered a high-risk earthquake zone. Current building codes do not guarantee a building will be liveable after an earthquake We can improve seismic recovery and resilience in buildings.

Design Discussion Primer - Severe Storms
Severe weather (thunderstorms, hail, blizzards, ice storms, high winds or heavy rains) often lead to loss of utility services, including storm, sanitary management and energy supply. Design and operations strategies can improve building resilience.

Design Discussion Primer - Wildfires
The number of wildfires is expected to increase with climate change. Fires are a threat to buildings. Wildfire smoke can affect air quality across large parts of the province. Buildings can be adapted to help people cope with air quality.

MBAR Training

MBAR is creating training based on real-life experience from pilot projects that include new and existing:

Residential buildings
Care facilities & Health campuses
Schools
Public/institutional buildings
Seniors housing
Social housing
Indigenous housing

MBAR will provide different types of training to support professional development for people who design, build, and renovate buildings where people live. By adapting building design and renovation to be resilient, we are future-proofing our homes in the face of climate change.

MBAR will equip experienced practitioners to train others. In this way, more people will benefit from resilient building techniques and materials.

Partners

MBAR is funded by:

NRCan
BC Housing
BC Hydro

City of Vancouver
Lower Mainland Health Organizations
Province of BC

In-kind contributors:

BC Institute of Technology
BC Non-Profit Housing Association
Canadian Home Builders’ Association
City of Toronto
Engineers & Geoscientists BC
Fraser Basin Council
Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction
Island Health Authority

Lower Mainland Health Organizations
Pacific Climate Impacts Consortium
Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions
Royal Architectural Institute of Canada
SFU Adaptation to Climate Change Team
Tarion Ontario
University of BC
Urban Development Institute
ZEBx

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