Climate Change and Building Collapse – Reflections and Recommendations

Climate change has become a reality and so has building collapse. Global Reports havealready shown serious changes in rainfall volume and timing resulting in heavier floods or inother situations more intense temperature waves. The science that deals with understandingand employing ethical processes in our daily activities in order to mitigate the negativeeffects of climate change caused by man's activities is referred to as Green Building orsustainable development. It is sometimes also called sustainable building/design. The idea ofsustainable comes in three forms; Environmental sustainability, Economic/ Financial/costsustainability and Social sustainability i.e. User friendliness/comfort/ health. The challengeof building collapse in Nigeria is clearly an issue that traverses these three aspects. Thispaper examines the occurrence of building collapse in Nigeria from the consultant's viewpoint with a view to highlight the importance of adopting green building practices byArchitectural Consultants as the leaders of the building team. Documented cases of buildingcollapse in Nigeria within the past decade are reviewed, the stated causes are highlighted.Furthermore, industry bespoke practises on building collapse mitigation across the globe arestudied. These include specifically America, Europe and Asia. A comparative analysis of thesustainable approaches adopted in these climes is drawn. In conclusion, it is recommendedthat the Nigerian Architect must imbibe these methods to see a future with less or absolutelyno cases of building collapse.