The two-storey family home with a classic design and wooden cladding blends in with its neighbours, but its thick, insulated walls, airtightness, solar panels, heat pump and highly efficient windows make it a home built for a warming world.

The home in Vancouver’s Point Grey neighbourhood generates more energy than it consumes and demonstrates how a highly efficient building is also more resilient to the effects of climate change, such as bouts of extreme heat, and smoke from wildfires that persisted well into this autumn in southwestern British Columbia.

The Net Zero-certified home was built to standards beyond those of any building code in Canada. While they’re changing, Canadian building codes have generally been developed to produce homes for cold climates rather than heat resiliency, said Chris Higgins, senior green building designer with the City of Vancouver.

“For so long in Canada, we’ve been focused on trying to keep warm,” Higgins said.

“Now, summers are getting hotter, and we’re having to adapt.”

The Net Zero home and others like it show that some consumers and builders are taking adaptation into their own hands with design and materials fit for a new climate, with the added benefit of boosting efficiency and cutting energy costs.

But many existing properties, from single-family homes to condos in towering skyscrapers, will need upgrades to meet the challenge.

A prolonged heat wave that sent temperature records tumbling across British Columbia in June 2021 underscored the importance of climate-resilient housing.

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