Resilient Design News For You

Newsletter Volume 4 No. 2 - April 2021

What’s Greener Than Green?    Our answer: resilient green. In other words, buildings that not only have a low environmental impact, but that also minimize the environment’s impact on us. As we strive to reduce carbon use, conserve resources, and adapt to a changing climate, we need to invest against natural disaster threats like earthquakes as well; otherwise, decades of sustainability gains could be wiped away in just 60 seconds of shaking or a single wildfire or storm. On April 21st, the day before Earth Day, The Resilience Advantage series turns to the nexus between Green and Resilient Design. Please take a moment to Register, then Share the 1-min promo ==> with your Chief Sustainability Officer or any other colleagues who are interested in taking sustainability to the next level.   Following the video presentation and a special introduction by webinar Co-Champion Maria Salinas, LA Area Chamber of Commerce Executive Director, an exceptional panel discussion awaits you with: Ben Stapleton, Los Angeles USGBC Emilie Mazzacurati, Global Head of Climate Solutions for Moody’s Corporation Elaine Aye, Regional Manager & Associate, RWDI - Portland Gail Lapell, Senior Associate, RD+C

Join Us on April 21st 11am-12:30pm PDT  The Resilience Advantage Episode 6: Green and Resilient Design - A New Model for Sustainability RSVP HERE Access all TRA recordings & future webinar registration

Also in this bi-monthly newsletter, we spotlight Stanford University's USRC Gold-Rated BioMedical Innovations Building, and announce USRC's creation of a Wind Rating System technical advisory process, the first step towards our long-term goal of becoming a multi-hazard rating system provider. Thank you for reading and have a wonderful start to your spring. Sharyl Rabinovici, PhD USRC Director of Strategic Communications

Stanford University Biomedical Innovation Bldg USRC Gold Currently under construction at Stanford University, the Biomedical Innovations Building (BMI) is a 5-story laboratory building utilizing buckling-restrained braced frames with a moment-connected back-up frame (which controls residual drifts).

Stanford requested a resilient building to protect scientific workers, assets, and activities with minimal downtime (also known as Class II in Stanford's performance objective system). The building was awarded a USRC-Gold rating. Rutherford + Chekene engineers designed this facility and used SP3-Design (now SP3-Advanced) to evaluate the building’s resilience. Congratulations to all who were involved in the project.

USRC to Develop Wind Rating System Our vision from the start has been to create a rating system family that allows owners and communities to optimize risk reduction based on a decisionmaker's own needs, allowing them to make better choices across multiple design options, multiple buildings, or multiple hazards. Late in 2020, USRC reached an important milestone by formalizing a Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) process to develop a wind rating system. USRC has convened experts from leading engineering firms and universities including the University of Florida and MIT. The WIND-TAC is meeting regularly and synthesizing the best technical science on the wind performance of buildings with the goal of translating it into a meaningful, quantitative tool that will address hurricane and other straight-line wind risks as well as storm surge. A USRC wind rating system will complement and build on the successes of approaches like the Institute for Building and Home Safety’s FORTIFIED and FEMA’s HAZUS programs.  Wind is one of the greatest dollar value contributors to disaster losses in the US each year. The launch of a USRC Wind Rating System will add tens of millions of US residents under the umbrella of the USRC’s Multi-Hazard resilience vision. USRC is actively seeking partnerships and technical advisers to begin development of wildfire and flood rating approaches as well, in 2022 or earlier. USRC-Rated Buildings Featured in SP3 Resilience Projects Case Study Series Interested in the technical specifics of some of the resilient buildings shown in The Resilience Advantage (TRA) webinars? Check out the recently launched case study series by HBRisk, creators of the SP3 performance-based design software. Since 2015, USRC ratings have been available as an output on the Standard and Advanced licensing levels in SP3. The SP3 Resilience Projects Case Study webinars complement and align with TRA's mission, providing engineering and design process details on some of the cases that TRA showcased from a broad societal perspective. Registration for the next SP3 Case Study webinar on April 14th, 12:00pm PDT, is available here. Engineers will present about 85 Bluxome in San Francisco, CA (featured in TRA Episode 1 at minute 13:05) and the Allenby Building in Sacramento, CA (featured in TRA Episode 2 at minute 1:55).

Case studies of USRC-rated structures, information on how to become a certified USRC Rater, and how to inquire about rating a building rating are available at www.USRC.org.

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