Our Buildings, Our Lives: The Need to Destress

Our Buildings, Our Lives: The Need to Destress

As global temperatures rise and urban density increases, existing buildings—many of which were not designed to withstand prolonged heat exposure—face escalating challenges. Heat stress is becoming a defining issue for urban environments, with serious implications for occupant health, energy use, and building systems performance. This session for London Climate Action Week, hosted by the CIBSE Resilient Cities Group in collaboration with WSP, brings together built environment experts to explore the urgent challenge of heat stress in existing buildings—and the critical need for climate-resilient solutions and will examine how climate-driven pressures are testing our buildings and will present strategies to enhance resilience, improve comfort, and reduce operational risks.

Drawing on technical expertise and real-world case studies, the session will explore the role of building services in managing internal environments, particularly the resilience of cooling systems and the retrofit strategies required to meet future thermal demands. It will also consider adaptive planning approaches that support long-term climate resilience across sectors, including healthcare, residential, and industrial buildings. The conversation will highlight both system-level design responses and planning pathways that can be implemented now to ensure readiness for tomorrow’s climate realities.

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