BRITE Synergy: Engineering More Resilient Housing through Inclusion of Women's Knowledge, Priorities and Perceptions

工程师们研究了房屋作为结构的抗灾能力，但很少关注房屋作为家庭、希望和梦想以及经济安全的体现。这个促进工程变革和公平进步的研究理念（BRITE）协同项目概念化了工程弹性住房的新方向，探索女性和其他居民的知识、优先事项和观念如何在个人、社区和建筑规范层面影响弹性住房的工程问题解决。它特别关注女性，因为在我们的社会中，她们与家庭的传统联系和责任，以及她们在工程、建筑和建筑专业中的代表性一直不足。该项目将探索在不包括女性居民、女性学生和女性建筑行业专业人士的情况下，缺少的专业知识来源。由于这个国家在灾后建造、改造或重建了大量房屋，因此有很大的机会解决未来灾害中的脆弱性，并在减少社区中断方面获得潜在的重大回报。该项目还关注工程人才生态系统多样化的需求，展示了更多样化的生态系统如何提高工程成果。该项目的假设是，将妇女的知识、优先事项和观念纳入工程研究和技术发展的议程以及所制定的工程解决办法中，就住房而言，会产生变化。这一假设将通过在两个研究重点中检查工程问题解决来检验。液化修复研究（推力1）将在家庭和社区层面对液化引起的建筑损坏风险进行新的概率工程评估，同时考虑到修复成本（即对业主和家庭财务安全的威胁）和可居住性（即失去家园的威胁）。它还将量化目前可用的液化补救技术如何改变这些风险。该项目将制定一项住房驱动的液化修复技术工程研究和技术开发议程，该议程将纳入社区知识，通过一系列促进焦点小组与洛杉矶河沿岸社区的社区成员共同创建。推力2的改造研究将利用独特的机会，对脆弱的钢筋混凝土建筑进行持续的评估和缓解，以响应洛杉矶市的强制性抗震改造条例。工程评估将量化现有（未改造）建筑物所带来的风险，包括可能的维修成本和房屋损失，以及改造（和拆除）工程解决方案的积极和消极影响。工程解决方案的过程和设计空间将通过征求妇女和居民的知识、优先事项和看法，通过半结构化的访谈和调查来发展。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Engineers have studied disaster resilience of housing as structures, but with less attention to housing as homes that embody family, hopes and dreams, and financial security. This Boosting Research Ideas for Transformative and Equitable Advances in Engineering (BRITE) Synergy project conceptualizes a novel direction in engineering resilient housing to explore how women’s and other residents’ knowledge, priorities and perceptions can shape engineering problem solving for resilient housing at the individual, community and building code level. It focuses in particular on women because of their traditional bond with and responsibilities for home in our society, and their continued underrepresentation in engineering, architecture, and construction professions. This project will explore the sources of expertise that are missed when women residents, women students and women building industry professionals in engineering resilient housing are not included. Due to the large number of homes being built, remodeled or rebuilt after disasters in this country, there is a major opportunity to address vulnerabilities in future disasters, with a potentially significant payoff in reducing community disruption. The project also attends to the need to diversify the talent ecosystem in engineering, showing how a more diverse ecosystem enhances engineering outcomes. The project’s hypothesis is that the inclusion of women’s knowledge, priorities and perceptions yields changes, for housing, in both the agenda set for engineering research and technology development, and the engineering solutions developed. This hypothesis will be tested by examining engineering problem solving in two research thrusts. The study of liquefaction remediation (Thrust 1) will develop new probabilistic engineering assessments of the risks of liquefaction-induced building damage at the home and community level, considering both repair costs (i.e., the threat to owners’ and households’ financial security) and habitability (i.e., the threat of losing the home). It will also quantify how the currently available liquefaction remediation techniques alter these risks. The project will produce a housing-driven engineering research and technology development agenda for liquefaction remediation techniques that incorporates community knowledge, co-created through a series of facilitated focus groups with community members from communities along the Los Angeles River. The study of retrofit in Thrust 2 will engage with the unique opportunity presented by the ongoing evaluation and mitigation of vulnerable reinforced concrete buildings in response to the City of Los Angeles’ mandatory seismic retrofit ordinance. The engineering assessment will quantify the risk posed by the existing (unretrofit) buildings, in terms of probable repair costs and loss of housing, and the positive and negative impacts of retrofit (and demolition) engineering solutions. The process and design space of engineering solutions will be developed through solicitation of women’s and residents’ knowledge, priorities and perceptions, through semi-structured interviews and surveys.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.