Building robustness: measuring climate-responsive performance with information theory

• Introduces information-theoretic metric from systems ecology—Robustness—as new tool for evaluating climate-responsive buildings. • Combines EnergyPlus simulations with emergy synthesis to integrate operational, renewable, and embodied energies into a unified systems model. • Demonstrates that responsive envelopes and coordinated HVAC controls significantly increase system Robustness compared to efficiency-focused designs. • Shows that slightly lower insulation levels, when paired with tuned shading and ventilation strategies, can improve heat exchange with thermal mass and yield the highest robustness. • Provides a replicable framework for analyzing buildings as open, self-organizing systems, enabling comparison among high-performance or net-zero designs. This paper introduces a novel, information-theoretic method for evaluating climate-responsive building performance by treating buildings as dynamic systems of energy and resource exchange rather than as input–output devices. Using multiple variations of the Margaret Esherick House as a case study, the research integrates hourly energy simulation, emergy synthesis, and ecological network analysis to quantify thermal behavior through information metrics. Sixteen design and operational variations were modeled to isolate climate-responsive effects, from the original leaky envelope to high-performance retrofits, responsive shading and ventilation strategies, and different HVAC configurations. Results show that the information measure of Robustness provides the clearest differentiation among high-performing, low-energy scenarios because it captures the balance between system organization and total throughput of renewable, operational, and embodied energy flows. Variations that coordinated responsive envelopes with HVAC systems achieved higher robustness than those relying on passive efficiency improvements alone, while optimized control strategies enhanced beneficial heat exchanges within building mass. The study argues that information measures can complement conventional metrics such as energy use intensity and adaptive comfort by revealing how performance is achieved. Information theory offers a new lens for comparing near-zero energy buildings and guiding the design of climate-adaptive architectures.