The Case For 'Passive Survivability' In Building Codes

"Houses, apartment buildings, and public buildings, especially schools and civic buildings that could be used as emergency shelters, should incorporate design features that will maintain livable conditions in the event of extended loss of power, heat, or water.

...Passive survivability can be achieved by incorporating the sustainable design features that have been so actively promoted by the green building community: cooling-load avoidance strategies, capabilities for natural ventilation, a highly efficient thermal envelope, passive solar gain, and natural daylighting. Indeed, these measures are so important that they may need to be incorporated into building codes. Buildings can go even further with features such as generating and storing photovoltaic electricity and collecting and storing rainwater, but the aforementioned passive survivability measures are most important.

...Along with providing critical life-support needs in the event of loss of power and heating fuel, buildings that provide passive survivability would also have the societal benefit of dramatically reducing energy consumption—which in turn would reduce the likelihood that limited supply would cause energy service interruptions. In other words, designing buildings to provide for passive survivability may reduce the likelihood that those features would actually be needed to keep occupants safe. Such measures would also dramatically reduce operating costs. "