Thermal resilience in the built environment: A critical review

• Reveals the research landscape across five thematic domains of thermal resilience. • Synthesizes existing metrics through the lens of the resilience curve. • Emphasizes trade-offs and synergies between thermal resilience and net-zero goals. • Proposes a cross-scale framework link urban and building thermal resilience. • Provides practical recommendations for stakeholders on thermal resilience practices. With the increasing frequency and severity of extreme weather events including heatwaves and cold snaps, enhancing thermal resilience has become a critical priority for the built environment. Existing studies offer advanced knowledge on building overheating risk, resilient cooling, and related adaptation strategies, but often remain fragmented and focused on isolated topics. Despite this growing body of research, no comprehensive review has yet synthesized these developments. This paper presents a comprehensive review of more than 100 peer‑reviewed journal articles on thermal resilience in the built environment, covering definitions, application domains, disturbance categories, scenario construction, and performance evaluation methods. The review critically examines current research trends from a broader perspective and reveals the diversity in current approaches. This paper further proposes a cross-scale framework linking urban and building thermal resilience and offers practical recommendations for different stakeholders. It also advocates integrating climate resilience with net-zero targets for the transition to a robust and future-ready built environment.