Promoting resilience in Finland: built environment professionals’ perspectives

ABSTRACT

The built environment and various ongoing crises, e.g. climate change, the biodiversity crisis, and declining well-being due to the pandemic, are interconnected. Resilience of the built environment has become increasingly important and construction professionals have a focal role in promoting it. This paper investigates the opportunities that professionals possess to introduce key aspects of resilience in building projects in their everyday practice in Finland. Six targeted focus group interviews for Finnish city planners, housing specialists, housing developers, housing architects, public building and landscape architects, and sustainability specialists were organized, encompassing 32 different professionals. A crisis preparedness checklist was developed and used as a concretization of resilience. Findings show that (1) currently all Finnish built environment professionals, except housing architects, are able to integrate some aspects of resilience in their current work; (2) aspects of resilience should be introduced to building projects and processes in their early stages; (3) all key aspects of resilience cannot be introduced by one profession; (4) interdisciplinary committee work and resulting information products by the Finnish Building Information Foundation provide a feasible opportunity for collaboration and integration of resilience to Finnish building projects and processes. This study highlights the need for dynamic built environment professionals’ engagement.

KEYWORDS:

• Resilience
• built environment
• crisis preparedness
• building design
• housing design
• sustainability

Introduction

With experiences from the recent pandemic as well as the ongoing climate crisis and biodiversity loss, there is an urgent need to improve resilience of the built environment. This is a task where several professions are needed, and action required in many scales (Castaño-Rosa et al., 2022). Many different stakeholders across responsibilities and professional fields are involved in decision-making of the development of the built environment. They include politicians and lawmakers, civil servants of the state and cities, city planners, building and landscape designers, engineers, building inspection authorities, developers, and builders and of course, users, communities and the public. Additionally, some preconditions and requirements affecting the development process are set by financing and the physical possibilities of building materials. Ideally, ordinary citizens have their say and influence on the outcome, too (Castaño-Rosa et al., 2022). Furthermore, cultural and practical conventions and experiences guide building as well as design processes, and the construction industry is often regarded to be reluctant to major changes, which may cause obstacles to introduce new aspects, such as resilience, to established processes (Teräväinen et al., 2018). However, significant shifts in the values and actions of the construction industry can be achieved by introducing new laws and regulations, for example, as is done for improved energy efficiency requirements (Kivimaa et al., 2017).

Resilience is a concept which has been used and studied in various research fields, such as ecology, economics, engineering, physics, psychology, and psychiatry (e.g. Dagoumas & Kitsios, 2014; Gasper et al., 2011; Spaans & Waterhout, 2017). The origins of the concept are often dated back to materials science of the early 19th century (Hassler & Kohler, 2014) or 20th century (Thorén, 2014). Some authors date the first use of the English term in the 15th century physics and scientific writings by Francis Bacon (e.g. Gößling-Reisemann et al., 2018), and remind that Latin terms resilire and resilio appeared in the writings of e.g. Seneca the Elder and Cicero (Alexander, 2013). The term began to be applied in the environmental sciences in the 1960s, and the concept of ecological resilience was introduced by Holling (1973) in the study of ecosystems.

In the context of cities and built environment, the concept of resilience has been used since the early 2000s (see e.g. Godschalk, 2003; Pickett et al., 2004). There are varying interpretations and definitions of it (see e.g. Meerow et al., 2016 on ‘urban resilience’). Often resilience is regarded as a general and unifying concept (Thorén, 2014), or a boundary object (Brand & Jax, 2007) with potential to bridge different disciplines.

However, despite its recognized unifying qualities, resilience as a general and abstract boundary object has been criticized for causing conceptual fuzziness (see e.g. Fröhlich & Hassink, 2018), making it difficult to operationalize or to develop generalizable indicators for its practical implementation (Meerow et al., 2016). Additionally, there has been criticism of the poor context-boundedness of resilience, and it has been regarded as important to consider questions such as resilient for whom, to what, and where (Meerow et al., 2016). Thus, how to promote resilience in the built environment in practice is still under-researched, especially in the specific local context of Finland. One way to fill this identified knowledge gap is to investigate what opportunities are available for those professionals who have key decision-making powers for including resilience in the built environment. This study therefore contributes to the existing knowledge gap by investigating the practical opportunities of professionals to promote resilience in the built environment in Finland and how they experience their current role with regards to this endeavour. The special emphasis of the study was on housing, although the discussion was not limited to it, as many professionals work across building functions. People working in these professions are referred to as built environment professionals in this paper.

The research questions of this paper are: (1) How are different built environment professionals able to introduce key aspects of resilience in their everyday practices at present, and (2) what are the most useful ways to do this by built environment professionals?

This paper is structured as follows: First, we provide a comprehensive overview of the state of the art on opportunities that professionals have to promote resilience in the built environment with a particular focus on Finland. After this overview, we explain the methods used to collect the data. Then, findings are presented and discussed. Finally, we briefly summarize the most important findings and conclude with reflections for further research.

State of the art

Urban resilience and resilience in the built environment are nowadays crucial concepts for effectively promoting resilient development. Although both concepts are often interchangeably used, a clear definition can be drawn from the existing literature that defines resilience in the built environment as the ability of buildings and urban infrastructure (with a greater emphasis on the building stock and how it provides/contributes to urban resilience) (Hassler & Kohler, 2014) to withstand future shocks and disruptions by enhancing critical qualities of the built environment, i.e. robustness, flexibility, etc. On the other hand, urban resilience is defined as ‘the capacity of individuals, communities, institutions, businesses and systems within a city to survive, adapt and grow no matter what kinds of chronic stresses and acute shocks they experience’ (Meerow et al., 2016). In other words, it can be said that urban resilience has a broader scope (i.e. socio-economic assets and the environment) than resilience in the built environment. In this paper, building on previous work conducted by Castaño-Rosa et al. (2022), resilience in the built environment is understood in a relatively widely applied way as ‘the ability of any urban system, with its inhabitants, to maintain continuity through all shocks and stresses, while positively adapting and transforming towards sustainability’ (UN-Habitat, 2021).

Promoting resilience in the built environment is pivotal to develop resilient infrastructures, which typically refer to physical assets that enable, sustain, or enhance societal living conditions (Fiedler & Wendler, 2016). However, infrastructures include many different components, which can be clustered into technological, social, and individual human elements (Edwards, 2016), leading to different definitions of infrastructure depending on the discipline. For instance, in urban development, infrastructure is considered the physical foundation of the city, including transportation networks, power grids, utility systems, etc. (Perry, 2015). In this study, resilient infrastructure is understood as the essential systems, physical and organizational structures and facilities in rural and urban environments that enhance the ability of an urban system to deal with the impacts of disruptions (Feofilovs & Romagnoli, 2017).

Global initiatives for resilience assessment frameworks and indicators

The development of theoretical frameworks and key indicators to evaluate resilience aspects in the built environment has lately raised the interest of researchers and policymakers worldwide (e.g. Ahsan, 2020; Apreda et al., 2019; Lak et al., 2020; McAllister, 2015; Urquiza et al., 2021). Existing frameworks focus on enhancing eight resilience qualities of the built environment: reflectivity, robustness, redundancy, flexibility, resourcefulness, rapidity, inclusion and integration (Al-Humaiqani & Al-Ghamdi, 2022; Krishnan et al., 2023). Building on those resilience qualities, the OECD defines four areas to promote resilience in cities: economy (enhancing education, employment, skills training, and industry to generate growth), governance (establishing open, transparent and clear governance structure and management), environment (developing basic infrastructures and equitable land use policy while protecting biodiversity), and society (ensuring inclusive, safe and healthy neighbourhoods and cities) (OECD, 2024). Furthermore, a set of indicators to measure urban resilience is suggested, addressing nineteen dimensions of resilience clustered into social, economic, environment, and institutional dimensions (Figueiredo et al., 2018). However, existing literature is divided, and the application of an existing theoretical framework is not straightforward nor accessible for those who need to make use of them.

Indicators play a pivotal role in assessing, monitoring, and supporting decision-making as an integral component of the risk governance process. Nevertheless, each indicator focuses on a particular element within the resilience areas that are possible and easy to quantify, leaving out of the assessment key aspects that cannot be quantified due to their qualitative background, e.g. number of green spaces versus space quality. Similarly, resilience is a multidimensional and complex concept influenced by a large number of factors which may overlook potential unintended consequences related to a specific solution/intervention (Tähtinen et al., 2024). Thus, there is a need to implement a holistic approach where qualitative dimensions and potential unintended consequences are also included in the decision-making process.

Emerging trends in the development of practical resilience assessment frameworks include the Community Resilience Planning Guide for Buildings and Infrastructure Systems developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the U.S., which prepares communities for anticipated hazards, and helps them adapt to changing conditions and withstand and recover rapidly from disruptions due to natural and human-made hazards (NIST, 2020). There is also Japan’s Building Regulation for Disaster Risk Management, a legal framework, building code and quality assurance mechanisms to develop more resilience for buildings through their full life-cycles including (1) planning, (2) design, (3) construction of new buildings, and (4) maintenance or retrofit of existing buildings (World Bank Group, 2022). The Resilient Cities Network (Formerly 100 Resilient Cities) is a global initiative, which enabled cities to hire a Chief Resilience Officer (CRO) to develop a resilience strategy, access pro bono services from the private sector and NGO partners, and share ideas, innovation, and knowledge through the global network of CROs (Resilient Cities Network, 2024). There is also extensive research on the development of Disaster Resilience Indexes (DRI) (Briguglio et al., 2008; Kusumastuti et al., 2014; Li et al., 2016; Rifat & Liu, 2020; Sherrieb et al., 2010; Wu et al., 2020; Yoon et al., 2015), with all of them in common the clustering of key indicators on economic stability, emergency workforce, agricultural development, human capital, digitalization, infrastructure, governance, social capital, and women empowerment dimensions (Khan et al., 2022).

Additionally, some municipalities and governments have defined their own resilience strategies (e.g. City of Athens, 2019; Government of Nepal, 2021; OneNYC, 2015; South Sudan Ministry of Environment and Forestry, 2021), where we can also find examples of success stories from local initiatives, for example Biddeford (Maine), where the City of Biddeford in partnership with Coastal Healthy Communities Coalition in 2023 initiated the Lead-Based Paint Hazard Reduction Program (funded by HUD’s Office of Lead Hazard Control and Healthy Homes), an initiative to achieve lead-safe homes in Biddeford (City of Biddeford, 2024). While many local communities have successfully integrated various climate change adaptation strategies into urban planning initiatives, including addressing both mitigation and adaptation, developing efficient sectoral policies, and building urban resilience (Lyles et al., 2018; OECD, 2009), challenges such as lack of national policies, political incongruity, and insufficient attention to equity issues persist (Chowdhury, 2020). The complex task of addressing resilience in the built environment leads to governmental bodies to prioritize those indicators and dimensions that are most important for their contextual characteristics to avoid losing focus on relevant factors, such as ignoring technological disruptions, solely focus on natural disaster or climate change, etc. Thus, metrics developed to measure community resilience need to be embedded within local contexts, integrated across spatial scales, and consider its capacity for adaptation and transformation (Singh-Peterson & Underhill, 2017).

Resilience in the Finnish context

Finland, the scope of this study, has implemented Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) measures since 2000, for example, the Electricity Market Act 2013 (Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment of Finland, 2013) establishes strict requirements on the length of electricity blackouts in rural and urban areas; LUOVA early warning services (Finnish Meteorological Institute, 2016) to provide efficient preparedness and response strategies through natural hazard warnings to security authorities, and the Flood Centre (Waterinfo, 2024), operated by the Finnish Meteorological Institute and Finnish Environment Institute, warns about flooding situations to authorities and residents in flood-prone areas. However, weather and climate risks limited to direct geographical and/or physical exposure have been the main focus of the implemented strategies and promoting resilience in more local and context-specific levels (e.g. in cities) as well as in small scale (e.g. in individual building projects) is missing (Pilli-Sihvola et al., 2018). The latest Finnish Recovery and Resilience Plan focuses on five main priorities: (1) Green transition, mainly focused on speeding up the transition from fossil fuel energy, while saving energy, improving air quality and ensuring security of energy supply; (2) Digitalization, with special focus on extending high-speed access to internet, digitalizing healthcare and employment services, boosting business’ level of digitalization and automation; (3) Employment and upskilling, boosting sustainable growth through increased employment rates and skill levels, taking advantages of digitalization; (4) Health and social services, enhancing the cost-effectiveness of existing services, prevention and early identification measures, and efficiency of digital services; (5) REPowerEU, aims at reducing reliance on fossil fuels and speed up the transition to clean energy (Ministry of Finance Finland, 2021). As previous DRR and CCA measures, the Finnish strategy has a broad scope at the national level without a clear communication system to ensure that cities and actors at the local level understand the different risks they may face in the future and how to use the different tools available to implement context-specific preparedness measures through context-specific strategies. The lack of common definitions and metrics for built environment stakeholders to understand and evaluate resilience could be considered as main challenge and limitation in the Finnish context. Räsänen et al. (2017), through a qualitative study involving 33 Finnish municipalities, identify lack of resource allocation (i.e. budget and time) as the most significant barrier to promote resilience at the local level, followed by lack of information and data about impact-related emergency situations to support planning decision-making, expertise on data management, and unwillingness of different stakeholders (from private and public sectors) to engage and support the development and implementation of systemic solutions.

The Finnish general framework for land use and building activities

In Finland, land use planning is conducted in national, regional, and municipal levels. National land use guidelines are prepared by the Ministry of the Environment under control of the government of Finland and approved by the parliament of Finland. In regional level, regional land use plans are prepared by authorities and approved by regional councils. In municipal level, local master plans and local detailed plans are prepared by municipal and city planners and approved by municipal councils. Overall, the system is hierarchical: regional land use plans establish a legally binding framework for local master plans, which establish binding frameworks for local detailed plans. Local detailed plans, then, guide building activity and set the basis for individual building projects and building permits. This hierarchical, multi-level, and multi-scale land use planning system is defined in the Land Use and Building Act of 1999. (Ministry of the Environment, 2024; Purkarthofer & Mattila, 2023.) However, at the time of writing this paper (spring 2024), a new national legal framework for land use planning and building design is under preparation.

Various built environment professionals affect land use and building design on the different levels described above. Policies for building design are set mainly at national and municipal levels by respective politicians and authorities. This means that policies for housing, the emphasis of this study, are set in both national and local levels. Additionally, an essential feature of the framework controlling building activities is that a monopoly in planning, i.e. the control over local land use, is assigned to cities and municipalities. This means, for example, that private landowners must make agreements with municipal authorities when they want to renew local detailed plans or initiate new planning processes on their land. Moreover, large-scale features of the built environment, such as locations of transport systems and green areas are handled in both regional and local planning levels (regional and master planning), whereas small-scale features usually in detailed planning and building design on specific plots.

The concept of resilience has evolved from being seen as a personal quality to a set of actions activated from different spheres, highlighting the dynamic and constantly evolving nature of the concept. Hence, this paper contributes to the existing need for a clear understanding on how to support built environment stakeholders to promote resilience through their day-to-day practices. It is important to note that, unlike previous studies, this work does not aim to develop a set of indicators nor a predetermined checklist to simply tick the ‘right’ solution to promote resilience in the built environment but, through a practicable and easy-to-use framework, facilitate the engagement of built environment stakeholders with the context, helping them to reflect on how to implement resilience aspects during the design process of specific ‘built environment solutions’. To ensure the development of resilient built environments for all society, it is essential for those involved in the development process (built environment stakeholders) to know and understand their role in the promotion of resilience through efficient use of resources, citizens’ satisfaction and wellbeing (Villa et al., 2023).

Methods

In this study, a crisis preparedness checklist was prepared to concretise resilience aspects and facilitate focus group interviews with Finnish built environment professionals. The research process of this study is visualized in Diagram 1, and its contents are described in the following.

Checklist formation

A checklist in the form of questions, instead of a ‘tick-box’ format, was formed to present the most important elements of resilience (referred to as key aspects of resilience) in an easy-to-use way. The checklist was compiled in two stages. It was first based upon a previous systematic literature review study on resilient solutions (Castaño-Rosa et al., 2022), which were later critically discussed, tested, and supplemented in workshops with academic experts as described further below.

In the literature review, six main crises were considered, based on the more specific 128 crises for real estate, space and land use identified by Tähtinen et al. (2024): climate crises, pandemic crises, digital crises, demographic crises, housing crises, and financial crises. These six crises, the first two of them with slightly modified terms, were included in the checklist. 114 solutions related to these crises were found in the review, and later grouped into 19 solution groups. The solution groups were then clustered as three key strategies and summarized as green and healthy infrastructures, adaptable infrastructures, and equitable and inclusive infrastructures.

In the second stage, four workshops with international academic experts were arranged. Thirteen persons representing different disciplines (architecture, urban planning, environmental engineering, mechanical engineering, urban ecology, environmental sciences, administrative studies, real estate management, health sciences, psychology, and futures studies) participated in the workshops. The experts have written scientific articles on resilience or sustainability from their respective viewpoints. Seven of them were Finnish, and six non-Finnish working in other countries (the United Kingdom, China, Belgium, Poland, and Italy). The experts were asked to share their understanding from their specific fields about the key solutions to the abovementioned crises. The workshop results were qualitatively analysed, and the solutions highlighted by the experts were grouped into main categories (later labelled as resilience themes), which included two to four subcategories (later labelled as topics). The following main categories were considered to be related to the scale of building design: adaptability, spatial aspects, tenure, nature aspects, energy and building services, material aspects, inclusion, knowledge and data, and safety and emergency. As a result of these processes, a checklist with eighteen topics formed as questions related to three broader resilient infrastructures and nine resilience themes were established (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. The crisis preparedness checklist (English translation of the original list in Finnish). The list was designed to be used in the focus group sessions by built environment professionals with the idea that by answering to the questions, the list user can check how well a project or a process is prepared to the crises mentioned in the list. To further concretise the need of resilience, the user can add future scenarios to the list.

It is important to note that the researchers wanted to convey the participants key aspects of resilience, which suggested a condensed and not-too-lengthy list, enabling them to reflect on novel innovations fit for specific contexts, and the question format was seen favourable for this purpose. Besides the positive aspects of the checklist in question format, researchers were also aware of its possible downsides. It was recognized that the format requires users’ relatively good knowledge of various topics, terms, and concepts, some of which are not familiar to those without a considerable amount of expertise; it may also lead to individuals’ interpretation depending on their experience and expertise. Hence, to help to approach the topics and to avoid unnecessary confusion or misunderstanding, some exemplary solutions were often included to the descriptions accompanying the questions of the list (see Figure 1).

Focus group formation and recruitment of their participants

Following this, focus group interviews were selected as a method for this study for several reasons. First, they bring people together to discuss a particular topic and provide researchers with a quick and efficient way to acquire research data (George, 2023; Morgan, 1997). They also provide participants a good opportunity to share ideas and experiences and comment on each other’s claims and statements. Moreover, they may also act as a learning experience among equals. The latter two aspects were considered as attractive features which may increase busy professionals’ interest to participate in a study with a subject often experienced as potentially rather abstract.

Recruiting relevant built environment professionals as focus group participants was conducted in three steps. In the first step, the professions which influence the design of the built environment the most were defined. Nine groups of built environment professionals were identified (see the groups in Table 1). The second step was the decision to concentrate on the professionals working in locations where most of the construction activity occurs in Finland. The following cities were recognized as growing cities and representing various parts of the country: Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa (three cities in the capital region), Turku, Tampere, Joensuu, and Oulu. The third step was identifying key persons within the nine groups of professionals working in the seven cities. In some groups the professionals were local government employees, and in other groups, persons were employed in commercial organizations. City planning directors (master planning and detailed planning), housing managers, and sustainability managers of the seven cities as well as managing directors of the non-profit housing organizations owned by these cities were searched in the cities’ webpages. CEOs, vice presidents, or directors of housing construction of eight to twelve large companies in the fields of commercial housing development, housing design, public building design or landscape architecture, and sustainability engineering were also identified. In the selection of architectural offices, a special attention was paid to include not only large architectural companies with offices in the capital region but also locally important offices in Turku, Tampere, Joensuu, and Oulu. Additionally, civil servants or other personnel responsible for regulatory framework and development of housing construction employed in a ministry and national housing development organizations were included.

Table 1. Focus groups: their formation and final content.

Originally invited groups of professionals	Focus groups implemented		Number of participants	Organization or office locations
Detail planning, master planning and/or strategic planning directors in cities	FG1	City Planners	6 persons	Helsinki, Vantaa, Tampere, Turku, Oulu
Carbon neutrality and/or sustainability managers in cities
Housing experts in cities	FG2	Housing Specialists	5 persons	Helsinki, Tampere, Espoo
State civil servants and/or non-profit company development specialists on housing
Commercial housing developers	FG3	Housing Developers	9 persons	Helsinki, Espoo, Oulu (non-profit); offices in several cities (commercial)
Non-profit housing developers
Housing architects	FG4	Housing Architects	5 persons	Offices in Helsinki and/or Oulu
Other architects: office & public building designers & landscape architects	FG5	Public Building or Landscape Architects	5 persons	Offices in Helsinki or Tampere
Sustainability and/or responsibility specialists in large engineering companies	FG6	Sustainability Specialists	2 persons	Offices in several cities, including non-Finnish

77 built environment professionals were identified this way. Invitations to participate were sent to them by e-mail. The invitees were asked to attend a focus group interview or suggest some other person in their organization to attend. Eventually 32 professionals, 17 of which identified as male and 15 as female, agreed to participate (41,6% response rate). Half of the participants (16 persons) were employed in commercial companies, and the rest were either civil servants occupied in city or state organizations (10 persons) or employed in non-profit organizations (6 persons).

The original nine groups of professionals were condensed into six (see Table 1) to maintain the number of participants in individual focus groups between four and ten and in a similar professional role. However, despite the preference for four or more participating professionals, one focus group session contained only two participants. Moreover, six cities instead of seven were represented as eventually professionals from Joensuu did not participate. Professional tasks and mutual relationships of the different built environment professionals who participated to this study are shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Tasks and relationships of the built environment professionals engaged in six focus groups of this study.

Focus group format and action and their data analysis

The focus group interviews were held online. The online format allowed people working in similar tasks but in different geographic locations to join the same shared session without time-consuming travelling and has been proven to be a successful and reliable research instrument (see e.g. Halliday et al., 2021). The online sessions were held in March 2023 using Microsoft Teams and Whiteboard applications for collaborative notes. All sessions were conducted in Finnish. They were recorded and transcribed. The participants of the focus groups were informed about the project and research ethics (data collection processes, data management, how personal data will be processed in the study, including the anonymization of their names or organizations in the study outcomes).

In the online focus group sessions, the earlier mentioned checklist was used for two purposes: first, to get the participants to individually think about the topic of resilience and how it relates to their own work, and second, to enable later reflection and discussion in group. The focus group action was divided to two parts: the first part consisted of participants using the checklist, and the second part of a facilitated group discussion on the experiences. In the first part and its first stage, participants were asked to (1) select a recent project or a process in which they had been engaged with and which they knew well, (2) read the questions of the list, and (3) write down the means which were used in that project or development process as answers to the questions presented. This revealed actual stated actions on resilience. In the second stage, one possible future scenario, including certain crises, was introduced to the participants. The same scenario was used in all focus groups. The participants were now asked to read the questions again and answer which additional means the project or process would need to apply to be prepared well enough to the scenario and to the crises it included. This revealed potential further actions that could be undertaken. After these stages, researchers initiated a group discussion by asking the participants several questions.

Two researchers participated in all focus groups. One of them was acting as the focus group facilitator, and the other was responsible for the online process. The researchers were aware of the potential bias from the researcher acting as a facilitator; however potential bias was minimized by asking the same predefined questions in all focus group sessions and by ensuring consistency of the facilitator and facilitation process. To avoid unintentional bias or underemphasis of some questions by the facilitator, the assisting researcher followed how the facilitator conducted the discussions, raising and posing the questions which may have been omitted in the final part of the sessions. The questions dealt with the general usability and form of the checklist, the need and potential advantage of including exemplary solutions and scenarios in the checklist, duties and stages of work where the checklist would be beneficial, and potential barriers to use the presented checklist in everyday tasks.

The focus group transcriptions were analysed using qualitative content analysis. The data was coded so that participants’ comments were first labelled with individual participant’s initials and profession, and later grouped and classified according to different topics or questions. One major topic was the first research question, i.e. to investigate how different professionals are able to introduce key aspects of resilience, as presented to them via a checklist, in their current tasks. For this topic, each focus group discussion was analysed and reported separately. The second research question, the most useful ways to introduce the aspects, was investigated by collecting participants’ opinions and suggestions in all focus groups together and analysing them jointly. Similarly, participants’ opinions on the stage of a building project when the aspects should be raised were collected and together analysed jointly.

Results

Findings of the focus groups for Finnish built environment professionals are presented and discussed in this section, based on the qualitative content analysis described above.

Opportunities of the built environment professionals to introduce resilience to projects

Six city planners employed in five different cities participated in FG1. A study participant, who is head of city planning, considered the presented crisis preparedness checklist useful, suggesting that it could be used in the city’s important public building projects. They said that if the list were available two years ago, it would have been used in one major cultural building project of the city. Another person, a detailed city planning head, shared that they would use the questions of the checklist to guide planners working in the planning organization. Additionally, they would use the questions in planning meetings with developers, for instance, posing them casually before formal meetings in ‘corridor talks’ with developers seeking for changes in detailed plans. A third detailed city planning head would also use the questions when discussing with developers and investors by raising them in an as early stage of a project as possible. They also stated that the checklist could be a helpful tool for planners when writing detailed plan specifications. An area city planner stated that the checklist could be one additional part in project negotiations in an early-stage guidance of developers.

Five housing specialists employed in three different cities and two organizations participated in FG2. Two housing specialists employed by cities raised the possibility to introduce some key aspects of resilience in plot allocation procedures or when making land use agreements. Plot allocation takes place when the city lets or sells the land owned by it to developers, whereas land use agreements are established in the cases when cities conduct planning in private-owned land, and resilience promotion could be required from construction in both cases. Similarly, one specialist stated that, with the city council’s approval, key aspects of resilience could also be included in general plot allocation guidelines of the city. They thought that the checklist could be brought to city-wide democratic discussion for city councillors to consider the implementation of some aspects of resilience into city policies. A specialist working in a state organization found applying the topics presented in the checklist highly useful and important especially in the design of special housing, such as housing for people with disabilities.

Nine developers, five of which employed in non-profit organizations in three different cities and four in commercial companies with offices in several cities participated in FG3. The developers stated that they would usually not use the checklist as such. Four developers, including non-profit and commercial ones, stated that they would import relevant parts or topics of the list into their design manuals which they present to architects and engineers. Two participants emphasized that they are reluctant to have several separate documents to hand over to building designers and thought that it is better to have essential information in one document. However, one developer stated that the checklist could possibly be used in the first meeting with the selected architect of a project, and additionally in the project planning phase.

Five housing architects with offices in two different cities participated in FG4. Deviating notably from other built environment professional participants, housing architects saw very few chances to introduce new topics to design processes. They stated that the housing design process in Finland is very strongly economically guided with not much room for housing architects to introduce any new subjects to it. One architect said that in the context of strong economic control, a housing designer does not have a chance to import these questions for a developer to concern. Another one stated that in the most usual role, the hands of the housing architect are fairly tied. A third was very sceptic that any new subjects introduced by a housing architect will be actually applied to the built project. Most participants were, therefore, highly pessimistic in their opportunities to introduce aspects of resilience to a housing project or have them be noted in the project. However, one participant saw some chances to introduce topics expressed in the checklist when working with a small and agile developer. As housing architects had experienced lack of influence, one participant posed the idea that it could be obligatory to hand out a paper containing key aspects of resilience and have them, in the minimum, discussed in the project without any mandatory outcomes.

Four architects and one landscape architect with offices in two different cities participated in FG5. Public building or landscape architects, contrary to housing architects, felt that they have some influence on the programme of the building or its environment. One public building architect and one landscape architect stated that they could use the checklist in an early stage of a project to discuss with the client and which aspects of resilience could be implemented in the project. Another public building architect planned to use the checklist in workshops with clients, highlighting the importance of having exemplary solutions included in the list to spark their own ideas and act as discussion-starters with the client.

Two sustainability specialists participated in FG6. Both participants were structural engineers with expertise in infrastructure and building design employed in international engineering companies. Similarly to public building and landscape architects, they thought that they could use the checklist in the project planning phase as a discussion-starter with the client. Additionally, one sustainability specialist had the idea to utilize the checklist as an early-stage selection tool which could help to target, prioritize, or select the special emphases of resilience of each project.

In general, the built environment professional participants agreed that resilience should be incorporated to projects in their early stages. Apart from housing architects who expressed lacking opportunities to introduce new subjects into the housing design process, one or more participants in all groups stated that key aspects of resilience should most often be introduced in an early phase of the project, i.e. in project planning or earlier (see Figure 3). The project planning stage seems to be focal, as participants in five focus groups expressed that aspects of resilience should be taken into consideration in that stage. While recognizing the importance of project planning stage, it was emphasized that some aspects of resilience need to be considered either before or after it. One sustainability engineer participant pointed out that some specific topics, e.g. alternative heating systems, should be introduced already in budgeting phase, i.e. when project feasibility is checked, if they are to be included in the project. Additionally, the need for consideration of particular aspects of resilience in several stages of a project was raised. Two housing developer participants opined that some aspects need to be first initiated in the project planning phase and later reconsidered in the first design meeting with the building architect.

Figure 3. Stages of city planning and building/landscape design where built environment professionals think key aspects of resilience should be introduced (represented by an arrow). Stages are presented in chronological order from the top to the bottom. Note that FG4 in red colour shows a stage considered possible by housing architects during rarely occurring special circumstances.

Stages of a project where different professional participants of this study would introduce aspects of resilience in their current roles are summarized in Figure 3. Note that those participants who favoured to use the crisis preparedness checklist, tended to value the possibility to include a pre-made scenario, a postulated future development, to the list to concretise the checklist further. Two city planners stated that a future scenario presented to them during the second part of the focus group session made them clearly see some risks to resilience in the current construction – thus serving as a good eye-opener of the importance of the subject.

Ways for built environment professionals to introduce resilience

The following five ways to introduce resilience came up in the focus groups: (1) including key aspects of resilience into a widely shared database, especially into the existing national building information system; (2) embedding some aspects of resilience into building regulations; (3) using an informative but voluntary checklist such as the one presented in this study; (4) embedding some topics or information presented in the checklist into design manuals; (5) embedding some topics or information presented in the checklist into planning documents.

In three of the six focus group sessions, one or more participants suggested including topics raised in the checklist to some of the Building Information Foundation’s information systems. Three housing specialists, four housing developers, and one public building architect expressed this preference. It was the most often suggested way to introduce resilience to projects by the professional participants of this study. Most participants who highlighted this suggested including the topics of resilience into RT building information files (RT-kortisto in Finnish). All suggestions regarding Building Information Foundation were made independently in different focus group sessions, i.e. researchers did not raise the Foundation as an alternative.

RT building information files are a Finnish-language database, originally a card index, which contains general information on standards, regulations, and building products as well as more targeted and detailed information on various topics, such as building contracts and design tasks, structural solutions, and recommendations for spatial design (see Rakennustieto, 2023a). The files consist of RT instruction cards, regulation cards, and product cards. The instruction cards (see one example in Figure 4) present versatile design-related information on e.g. functional dimensioning of spaces. The cards, as well as some other information products of the Foundation, are created by committees consisting of various professionals and established by the Foundation separately for different topics (see Rakennustieto, 2023b, in Finnish). The instruction cards contain recommendations which are not mandatory to follow in building design. However, as the cards are established by interdisciplinary committees involving various stakeholders of the real estate business and construction industry, they are widely accepted and regularly referred to in the Finnish construction sector. This fact was highlighted by one housing specialist participant who stated that the process where the cards are created is a practical way to introduce various topics and establish a wider recognition and approval of them within the construction sector even before the final instruction card is published.

Figure 4. An example of an RT instruction card. Two pages from the sixteen-page card ‘Adaptability in housing design’. Source: RT 93-11232 Muuntojousto asuntosuunnittelussa: Tila- ja pääsuunnittelu. Copyright Rakennustietosäätiö 2016.

Diagram 1. Research process.

In the focus groups, three developers favoured the idea to introduce key aspects of resilience in RT files. One of them described in a lengthy way how developers are accustomed to use the cards and other information provided by the Building Information Foundation in their everyday practice. This participant envisioned that depending on the general characteristics of each project, they would select relevant subjects of resilience for implementation and do this by referring to a relevant RT card when commissioning architects. An alternative to RT cards was suggested by one public building designer. Instead of a card, they suggested embedding key aspects of resilience into the RTS Environmental Classification, a Finnish sustainability assessment tool developed by the Foundation. A complementary way to embed aspects of resilience to building projects utilizing RT files was given by one housing specialist participant who suggested that building inspection authorities could pass key aspects of resilience in the format of an RT file to their clients as a subject that should be taken into account in projects. The participant raised this idea at a general level without stating any specific ideas about how the authorities should handle this issue. However, a new demand introduced by building inspection authorities was heavily opposed by four of the five housing architect participants and by one public building designer. The housing architect participants expressed that they are currently required to fill an exhausting number of documents or forms during the building permit process and are highly reluctant to increase their number.

In three of the six focus groups, the idea to make some aspects of resilience a mandatory requirement via national building regulations was brought forward. This notion was highlighted by one city planner, one public building designer, and two housing architects. A city planner and a public building architect had doubts about the effectiveness of a voluntary checklist and stated that there must be requirements for key aspects of resilience to have them implemented in reality. One housing architect expressed a preference for such mandatory requirements which can be precisely verified e.g. by using numerical indicators. Another housing architect suggested an idea that, similar to current regulations for bomb shelters in Finland, some space in buildings with adaptable use for exceptional circumstances could be officially required. It is noteworthy that all four participants who brought forward preferences for resilience regulations were architects.

Four built environment professional participants in three focus groups expressed that one way to include resilience to projects is to utilize an informative but voluntary checklist such as the one presented in this study. Two sustainability engineers and one public building architect could use it in early-stage workshops with their clients, whereas one city planner presented an idea to use it in project planning stage of city’s important public buildings.

Five built environment professional participants in two focus groups mentioned that they could use the checklist indirectly and embed some topics of it or information it contains into the documents they create or maintain in their organizations. Four housing developers stated that they could include some aspects of resilience in their design manuals, and one city planner presented an option to include them in planning documents.

The tools or instruments the built environment professional participants of this study preferred to introduce key aspects of resilience to building projects and building processes in their everyday practices are summarized in Table 2. While several ways to introduce resilience in everyday practices were recognized by them, some participants experienced a strong lack of influence in reality. As stated previously, housing architects experienced that they are currently not in the role to introduce new aspects, such as resilience, to the process. Additionally, one public building architect verbalized the lack of influence by stating that the current culture in the Finnish building sector does not support emphasizing resilience and there is need for a major shift in the building culture in general.

Table 2. Alternative tools to introduce resilience to building projects as experienced by built environment professionals.

	Information systems by the Building Information Foundation	Mandatory building regulations for resilience	An informative voluntary checklist	Design manual	Planning documents
FG1 City Planners (6 participants)		1	1		1
FG2 Housing specialists (5 participants)	3
FG3 Housing developers (9 participants)	4			4
FG4 Housing architects (5 participants)		2
FG5 Public building or landscape architects (5 participants)	1	1	1
FG6 Sustainability specialists (2 participants)			2

Note: The numbers in individual tool columns indicate how many focus group participants in each group mentioned the tool during the focus group session.

Discussion

Results from this study highlighted that Finnish built environment professionals experience varying opportunities to integrate key aspects of resilience to their everyday practices at present. All participants except housing architects stated that in their current duties, they are able to introduce some aspects of resilience. In general, the professionals who deal with large scales or general aspects of the built environment expressed being capable of it, but many of those working closer to the actual building projects found obstacles. This resembles findings in earlier literature where it was recognized that Finnish efforts towards resilience have been top-down oriented, often dealing with the whole country and not being very context-specific as well as lacking small-scale approach (Pilli-Sihvola et al., 2018).

According to the results of this study, it is important to increase basic knowledge as well as obligation and commitment of various stakeholders to resilience in Finland. Their importance was raised especially by several architects who work in the building design role, i.e. in a small scale within the built environment. Many architects expressed that they need some sort of generally accepted support to include resilience into projects and stated that their own opportunities were currently very limited due to the strong hierarchy culture.

A subject which some architects brought forward in focus group discussions was the need for a cultural change in the building sector in Finland, also argued by Teräväinen et al. (2018), who propose the adoption of a holistic perspective to successfully implement this cultural change. Opportunities could come from changing current organizational management culture where decision flow goes only in one direction (see Figure 2) towards a more dynamic and democratic culture in which different built environment professionals have the opportunity to interact between each other and discuss optimal ways to introduce resilience aspects. However, it is noteworthy that housing architects (FG4) were not very optimistic on the idea of cultural change, as from their experiences it is only with small and ‘young’ developers where they had chances for discussion and co-creation, underpinned by Schein (2010), who draws attention to the unwillingness of experienced professionals to change their practices and approaches. A similar phenomenon has been noticed by Matinaro and Liu (2017), who raise the lack of organizational culture and diversity inventiveness as main barriers to promote sustainability and innovativeness in the Finnish construction business.

A national database regarded beneficial in integrating resilience

In this study, built environment professional participants’ opinions on how to introduce resilience to building projects included the integration of information on resilience in existing Building Information Foundation information systems (eight participants) followed by mandatory building regulations and voluntary resilience checklists (four participants in both). The fact of including resilience aspects in regulations and legislations as the only means to promote their implementation has also been pointed out by Teräväinen and Junnonen (2019), who see it as an opportunity to erase autocracy and clan of certain stakeholder groups. To a lesser extent, inclusion of some aspects of resilience in design manuals (four participants) and planning documents (one participant) was brought forward (see Table 2).

This study suggests that a possible basis for collaboration as well as mutual agreement and commitment to the subject of resilience in general in Finland can be formed by the Building Information Foundation via its interdisciplinary committee work and resulting information products. In alignment with a previous study (Weichselgartner & Kelman, 2015), participants of this study agreed that including the checklist approach into Building Information Foundation’s information systems would enhance the implementation of resilience aspects in the building industry by (1) conveying basic knowledge of resilience to various parties; (2) facilitating collaboration of different professions in creating a shared understanding on resilience in the Finnish context; and (3) providing professionals context-specific tools which are easy-to-use in their everyday tasks to include aspects of resilience in building projects.

The results of this study also suggested that in their current tasks, most Finnish built environment professionals find voluntary means more useful than mandatory regulations to include resilience to building projects. Voluntary means were preferred especially by housing specialists and housing developers, but disbelief on them was presented by architects who are directly engaged with projects.

Early stages of projects and collaboration considered important

When, in the project stage, resilience aspects should be implemented and how is a challenging question to be addressed (Andries et al., 2023). Kohler and Moffatt (2003) point out that there is a need to consider sustainability aspects early on for them to be integrated in the design process. Similarly, results from the focus groups of this study clearly suggested that resilience should be introduced to projects in their early stages, and among those stages, the project planning stage and the decisions made during this early stage were considered crucial.

This can be illustrated by the example of green infrastructure, which refers to natural or man-made greenery in various scales and consists of e.g. green roofs and private gardens in the small scale to parks, wetlands and natural reserves in the large scale (Castaño-Rosa et al., 2022). In the large scale, green infrastructure is not a matter of building design or related to a single building project but rather an issue of city planning or even regional planning, and therefore provision for it takes place well before individual building or landscape projects are initiated. Moreover, at the building scale it needs to be integrated early on and has implications for structural and drainage services design – it also highlights the interdisciplinary crossover and challenges of decision-making to create truly resilient built environments. Similarly, the built environment professional participants of this study shared the notion of the importance of collaboration as they often pointed out that all key aspects of resilience cannot be introduced in building projects by one profession.

Concretization and coordination were highlighted in this study by some built environment professional participants, particularly housing developers, when expressing a preference for showcasing good, implemented solutions and examples to raising topics as questions to be solved creatively in the process. Both aspects have been shown to be essential to react to and overcome unexpected natural hazards disruptions, and so the promotion of resilience (De Florio et al., 2014; Lundberg & Johansson, 2019). In this sense, a checklist based on questions, the selected method of concretization of resilience in this study, seemed to fit well for those built environment professionals who engage themselves in the earliest stages of building projects (city planners and some housing experts), but less well to those who take part in the later and more concrete stages of construction.

A scenario approach found useful

Finally, most Finnish built environment professionals positively welcomed the possibility to have a pre-made scenario showing future risks in the current built environment as well as potential ways to implement resilience aspects, helping them to better understand the ‘complex’ concept of resilience in a practical way. Unlike in previous studies (IRMA, 2018; Therrien et al., 2020; Urquiza et al., 2021; Yu et al., 2020), these results highlighted the innovative contribution of the proposed checklist with scenarios to facilitate the implementation of resilience aspects by built environment professionals.

Conclusions

The concept of resilience in cities has been studied worldwide since the early 2000s, but due to its dynamic and changing nature, context-specific definitions and strategies for professionals to include resilience aspects in the decision process are essential. This study focused on various professionals’ capabilities to increase resilience in the Finnish built environment. Unlike previous studies (Matinaro & Liu, 2017; Teräväinen et al., 2018; Teräväinen & Junnonen, 2019), this study provides a practicable and easy-to-use checklist to facilitate built environment stakeholder engagement in Finland, providing a space for reflection on how to better promote resilience aspects in the design of specific built environment solutions. The checklist proposed in this study therefore contributes to the existing lack of practical information on how to implement resilience at the local level, as pointed out by Räsänen et al. (2017).

Results from the focus groups highlighted the importance of the early stages of the project (i.e. project planning or earlier phases) where resilience aspects need to be considered. Findings also pointed out the current organizational management culture (i.e. top-down approach) as one of the main barriers for the promotion of resilience in the built environment. Moreover, built environment stakeholders at the latest stage of the design process (FG4 housing architects) felt that they do not have the chance to be part of the design discussion at the early stage when general conditions are defined by city planners (FG1), housing specialists (FG2), and housing developers (FG3). This sheds light on the need for a cultural change in the way Finnish built environment stakeholders engage and discuss resilience aspects during the city planning as well as building and landscape design towards a more dynamic and democratic process.

This study has shown that Finnish built environment professionals do not have a dynamic engagement process but a top-down interaction flow where professionals at the bottom (especially FG4 housing architects) have very few chances to influence decision-making at the top level (FG1 city planners). It is also clear that ‘land use planning’ at urban scale and ‘project planning’ at building scale are the main stages where aspects of resilience need to be discussed, and that the checklist proposed in this study is a helpful tool to facilitate this discussion by providing space for reflection. Finally, it appears that a voluntary checklist and resilience aspects embedded in design manuals and planning documents could enhance the implementation of resilience in the built environment, but essential aspects of resilience should be included in building regulations, too.

Several ways to promote resilience in the built environment were drawn out from the results: (1) inclusion of resilience aspects in existing national building information systems; (2) building regulations; (3) tool / checklist to facilitate discussion; (4) design manuals; and (5) planning documents. Furthermore, the proposed tool / checklist was well received by the Finnish built environment professionals involved in this study, who highlighted the pre-defined scenarios (on how to implement resilience aspects in real projects) as an effective and innovative way to increase the awareness and understanding of its importance, not only among laymen but also among professionals.

As highlighted in the Introduction, when discussing resilience, it is important to consider questions such as resilient for whom, to what, and where (Meerow et al., 2016). This paper describes the current situation in Finland. Building regulations, design and construction procedures, roles, and tasks of different professionals as well as habits in city planning and building and environmental design vary between countries. Therefore, the results of this study cannot be generalized widely across different contexts. Additionally, as the participants of this study represented professionals working with the built environment in growing Finnish cities, the results may not be appropriate in declining areas and municipalities of Finland. Further studies in other national and even local contexts should be conducted.

Regarding further research, inclusion of more focus group participants may have highlighted other issues; a new architecture policy in Finland may also lead to different challenges and opportunities and following through its effects would be useful. Further research on implementing and testing some of the identified solutions for improving urban resilience in design and building processes would increase understanding on their effectiveness but also on their potential barriers.

Ethical approval

According to the guidelines of the Ethics Committee of the Tampere region, the used research protocol does not require an ethical review. Participation in the research is based on the participant’s informed consent. The research included workshops with academic experts and focus group interviews for built environment professionals. Informed consent, including the GDPR privacy statement, was sent to all participants prior to the workshops and the focus group interviews. It described how interview material will be handled, how personal data will be protected and processed, and what are the rights of the participants. Additionally, contact details of the person in charge of the research were given.

Acknowledgements

We express our gratitude to all Finnish built environment professionals who participated in the focus group interviews of this research. We are also grateful to international academic experts who shared their expertise in workshops and provided valuable insights for solutions to the crises discussed. Additionally, we are highly grateful to our research colleague, architect Heini Järventausta, who in the role of research assistant organized and managed the remote focus group sessions and took part in the crisis preparedness checklist development as well as academic expert workshops of this study.

Disclosure statement

During the finalization of this article, Jyrki Tarpio was invited as a member of the board of the Building Information Foundation. However, this has not affected the analysis nor the results of this study, as the research analysis was conducted and results were first reported in the first paper submission before the request to accept this invitation.

Data availability statement

The datasets (recordings and their transcriptions) generated and analysed during the current study study cannot be made publicly available due to them containing information that could compromise research participants’ privacy and consent. The participants were informed in advance that the personal data collected in the study cannot be fully anonymized and therefore the data cannot be published.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Research Council of Finland under Grant number 339711, RESCUE project (2021-2023) Real Estate and Sustainable Crisis Management in Urban Environments.