Climate 2000 - Building enclosure performance in a more severe climate

A well-functioning and reliable infrastructure is an important basis for economic growth and social development. The lifetime of the built environment depends on the severity of local weather conditions. The development of high-performance building enclosures is now being addressed as part of ”Climate 2000” (2000-2006), one of Norway’s largest ongoing research & development programme’s in the construction industry. The completion of the programme will be celebrated in 2007. This paper provides an overall view of research areas within the programme, emphasizing challenges concerning building enclosure performance and weather protection in the construction process. Five PhD fellowships are attached to the “Climate 2000”-programme. Three PhD fellowships are mainly concerned with the development of advanced design and modelling tools and methods for risk and vulnerability assessments of building enclosure performance under the climate regime of today, and in a potentially more severe climate. Two PhD fellowships are focusing on analysis of action patterns in the construction process and experimental research on moisture problems in critical structures.