Touraj Ashrafian conducted a research on the importance of incorporating future weather predictions into building assessments to enhance resilience, energy efficiency, cost savings, occupant comfort, and sustainable infrastructure development in response to climate change. His study explored the interplay between climate change and building performance, primarily focusing on energy usage, cost implications, and occupant comfort in school buildings across different climate zones. 

The research emphasized the need for tailored climate adaptation strategies specific to various regions and underscored the importance of considering future performance impacts, even for highly energy-efficient buildings. Utilizing a comprehensive simulation-based approach, Ashrafian implemented and validated future weather data in a Turkish school building, integrating envelope improvements and photovoltaic applications to enhance energy efficiency. A distinguishing aspect of the study was its rigorous validation of future weather predictions against current measured data, enabling a regional-level assessment of climate change effects on building energy consumption.

The findings demonstrated that in hot climates, there is potential for nearly doubling primary energy consumption, global costs, and CO₂ emissions in the future, for both cost-optimal and nearly zero-energy scenarios. As a result, projected savings were found to decrease from 53-63% to 13–30%. Conversely, in cold climates, while primary energy consumption and CO₂ emissions were reduced, global costs increased. The study also highlighted that a building retrofitted to a high energy efficiency level might experience substantial increases in future energy consumption and global costs, potentially approaching the levels of currently inefficient buildings. 

The study’s novelty lay in its detailed assessment of climate change’s multifaceted impacts on buildings, innovative validation of future climate data, and contribution to developing a more localized, climate-specific approach to building energy-cost-comfort performance.