NSF award supports research on resilient and sustainable building design

University Park, Pa. — Gordon Warn, associate professor of civil engineering, along with two other Penn State faculty members, recently received a National Science Foundation (NSF) award to fund their research on resilient and sustainable building design.

Warn, along with Timothy Simpson, professor of mechanical and industrial engineering, and Lisa Iulo, associate professor of architecture, will collaborate with researchers from the University of Pittsburgh on the project. Warn and his team received approximately $850,000 of the $1.26 million collaborative grant. The three-year project will begin March 1.

The goal of the project, titled “A Sequential Decision Framework to Support Trade Space Exploration of Multi-Hazard Resilient and Sustainable Building Designs,” is to advance knowledge for new concepts for multi-hazard resilient and sustainable building systems. To do that, the team will formalize a decision framework that will allow designers to sequentially select and narrow down alternative building system designs.

The decision framework will help facilitate the integrative design process by allowing multiple stakeholders to communicate more effectively throughout the design process and arrive at a final design that achieves the overall design objectives. For example, a design that reduces natural hazard related losses and environmental impact.

“We are very excited about it,” Warn said. “It’s unique … This could really have a nice impact on practice.”

Warn has been a member of the Penn State faculty since 2008. His research interests include dynamic systems, performance-based design and earthquake engineering.