A Quantitative Analysis of the Exoadaptivity of Buildings in London

Abstract

Adapting cities is a method of addressing global warming and rising sea levels. Rooftop housing, a way of externally adapting buildings, has recently been promoted in London. The concept of ‘exoadaptivity’ has been developed by this study to describe how buildings and built environments externally adapt. Using unstructured data from the planning system and text mining, this study provides a quantitative analysis of the exoadaptivity of buildings in London with an emphasis on the spatial and temporal dimensions of rooftop housing. The results reveal that the exoadaptivity of buildings in London varied. This study also finds that there are contrasts in terms of how residential and non-residential buildings adapted. Amidst global environmental crises such as climate change, exoadapting buildings could be critical to achieving sustainability in the built environment.