Testing ‘Green’ Construction To Ensure Surfside Doesn’t Happen Again

The search for victims of the tragic Surfside, Florida building collapse may have ended, but the search for answers to how this happened and lessons to prevent it from happening again is only just beginning.

This catastrophe justifies a closer look at how building materials are tested for strength and durability – especially in light of two urgent pressing concerns: whether or not to return to offices as the economy emerges from the pandemic; and how building for climate resilience and reduced carbon footprint affect building safety.

Those testing protocols are established by ASTM International, structural engineer Frances Yang of the global engineering, architecture, design and consulting firm Arup, told me, and that “ASTMs work with many other building and building systems codes and standards to give us a way to manage risks up and down the construction supply chain.” ASTM is the American Society for Testing and Materials, is “an international standards organization that develops and publishes voluntary consensus technical standards for a wide range of materials, products, systems, and services.” These materials can range from sealants to insulation systems, and from roofs to doors, and address potential hazards during the manufacturing or installation processes, according to the ASTM website.

Yang said there are multiple levels of testing during every stage from the research and development stage to the actual project at the job site, based on different constraints and requirements. Every project has unique characteristics, including whether it’s exposed to the elements or underground or how many floors, and unique climate and geological issues to protect from, such as hurricanes or earthquakes. And, how the materials need to interact with other building materials and components in the project assembly.  They are tested with specific protocols, usually by a third party.

“So, any of these technologies to make it on to a project, they really have to be tested for all these specific uses,” Yang said, adding that, “The construction industry is inherently really risk-averse, so they’re going to make sure that all the tests and standards of care are in place. Anyone who’s been in the business for a while knows that you really need to follow a robust standard of care.”

Why buildings fail

“A lot of failures happen because it’s a very local phenomenon that fails,” Yang explained, “and then, if there isn’t enough redundancy built into the system, then it just propagates and leads to the kind of collapse that we saw.” This is about durability more than strength then, she clarified. Therefore, “the other job of design is to build in redundancy,” so a failure in one place does not ripple through the building like it did in Surfside. 

A localized failure might be, for example, “two different materials not coming together, that would interact poorly, or…there’s a local deficiency in what we call a ‘cover,’ like the normal amount of protection,” such as sufficient layers of concrete over rebar. “Then, that can easily become a place where it starts to crack and then you get the intrusion of the sea water,” is an example Yang gave.

Structural engineers have computer modeling that enables them to “run through thousands of scenarios” of what might happen, from a localized failure to the potential for progressive deterioration, and then build in more redundancy to protect against those scenarios. For example, in Florida, their scenarios could have included corrosion from severe humidity and sea level rise.

Potential risks unique to green buildings

The need to address and mitigate climate change has given rise to the development of dozens of novel “green” building materials and technologies to reduce the carbon footprint of buildings, one of the top sources of carbon emissions.  

The U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED certifications – for Leadership In Energy and Efficiency Design – says that LEED-certified buildings have 34% lower CO2 emissions, consume 25% less energy and 11% less water, and divert 80 million tons of waste from landfills, all saving hundreds of millions of dollars in the process. They also say LEED-certified buildings command higher rents and have lower vacancy rates than non-LEED-certified buildings. (Here’s the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) comparison of the various green building certifications.)

The green building market is estimated to rise to $433 billion by 2024, with corresponding reductions in emissions, water and energy use and waste generation, so there are huge market and environmental incentives for these materials and technologies to be safe and effective.

In addition to rigorous testing of new building technologies and materials, such as concrete made from CO2, many green buildings also use recycled steel and wood, which bring their own potential risks, such as from contaminants or wear and tear.  Imagine if the wood has been painted or varnished, or if the steel endured earthquakes or multiple hurricanes.

What we really need

Yang, a sustainability specialist who is also certified in LEED,  said that, “What we really need is more information, more data and transparency about the origin, the provenance of the materials and what potentially could be present so the proper kinds of tests could be run,” including how it might interact with the other materials in the project. Or, it might have residue that you might not want to bring into the environment.

What we really need is answers about exactly what failed in Surfside, and more transparency and more testing overall, so we can make sure it never happens again, anywhere.