Resillience

What resilience means for BRANZ research

Resilience is about how buildings are designed, built and managed to prepare for, respond to and recover from adverse events.

BRANZ invests the Building Research Levy in research that helps reduce damage to buildings and supports safer, faster recovery after earthquakes, fire, extreme weather and climate‑related events.

Through the resilience focus area, BRANZ supports research that helps the sector reduce risk, limit damage and improve building performance across a wide range of hazards, while supporting effective repair and rebuilding when disruption occurs.

Why resilience matters

Aotearoa New Zealand faces ongoing exposure to earthquakes, flooding, fire and increasingly severe weather events. These hazards place people, buildings and communities at risk and can have long‑lasting social and economic impacts.

Building resilience is influenced by many decisions – where buildings are located, how they are designed and constructed and how they are repaired after an event. Levy‑funded research helps improve understanding of these risks and supports better decisions that reduce harm and speed up recovery.

What BRANZ is working to change

Levy-funded research in resilience focuses on helping the sector:

• better understand and manage risks to buildings
• improve building performance to withstand adverse events
• repair and rebuild faster, more safely and more cost‑effectively after disruption.

The goal is having a more resilient building stock that reduces damage, protects occupants and helps communities recover more quickly when adverse events happen.

Types of research BRANZ supports

Under the resilience focus area, BRANZ may invest in research that supports:

• evidence to improve understanding of and response to cumulative effects of hazards and risks 
• tools and guidance to support better site selection, design and construction decisions
• improving repair, recovery and rebuilding practices
• system‑wide approaches that strengthen resilience across the building life cycle.