No. 31 (2026): Risks and built environment: From knowledge to project
Essays and Viewpoint

Climate change, uncertainty and risk assessment for adaptation strategies in architectural design

Giancarlo Paganin
Dipartimento di Architettura e Studi Urbani, Politecnico di Milano, Italia
Cinzia Talamo
Dipartimento di Architettura, Ingegneria delle Costruzioni e Ambiente Costruito, Politecnico di Milano, Italia
Nazly Atta
Dipartimento di Architettura, Ingegneria delle Costruzioni e Ambiente Costruito, Politecnico di Milano, Italia

Published 2026-07-29

Keywords

  • Risk management,
  • HAZOP technique,
  • Climate risk,
  • Project,
  • Adaptation strategies

How to Cite

Paganin, G., Talamo, C., & Atta, N. (2026). Climate change, uncertainty and risk assessment for adaptation strategies in architectural design. TECHNE - Journal of Technology for Architecture and Environment, (31), 60–73. https://doi.org/10.36253/techne-18696

Abstract

The paper analyses the relationship between the built environment and impacts deriving from climate change with the aim of highlighting the need to develop methods and tools to effectively manage the numerous uncertainty factors present in the framework of climate actions on buildings in the design phase. In this context, the paper proposes an analysis of the many risk assessment techniques available in the literature to identify tools capable of supporting building design in managing the uncertainty of climate actions by defining appropriate adaptation strategies. In a perspective of technology transfer from other production sectors, the paper proposes an application to the building scale of a specific risk assessment technique – the Hazard and Operability study (HAZOP) – adapting its characteristics to the building project and testing its application to a case study within the European RE-SKIN project.

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