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

工程师们将住房的抗灾能力作为结构进行了研究，但较少关注住房作为体现家庭、希望和梦想以及财务安全的住房。这一促进工程转型和公平进步的研究想法(BRITE)协同项目构想了工程弹性住房的一个新方向，以探索妇女和其他居民的知识、优先事项和看法如何在个人、社区和建筑法规层面塑造弹性住房的工程问题解决方案。它特别关注妇女，因为她们在我们的社会中与家庭有着传统的联系和责任，而且她们在工程、建筑和建筑专业中的代表性仍然很低。这个项目将探索当女性居民、女性学生和女性建筑行业专业人员不包括在工程弹性住房中时所错过的专业知识来源。由于这个国家在灾难发生后正在建造、改建或重建大量房屋，因此有一个重大机会来解决未来灾难中的脆弱性，减少对社区的破坏可能会带来巨大的回报。该项目还关注了工程学人才生态系统多样化的需要，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、优先事项和看法纳入工程研究和技术开发的议程和制定的工程解决方案，在住房方面都会产生变化。这一假设将通过检验两个研究项目中的工程问题解决来检验。液化补救研究(推力1)将在考虑到维修费用(即对业主和家庭的财务安全的威胁)和宜居性(即失去家园的威胁)的情况下，在住宅和社区层面对液化引起的建筑物损坏的风险进行新的概率工程评估。它还将量化目前可用的液化补救技术如何改变这些风险。该项目将为液化补救技术制定住房驱动的工程研究和技术开发议程，纳入社区知识，通过与洛杉矶河沿岸社区的社区成员共同创建一系列便利的重点小组。根据洛杉矶市的强制性抗震改造条例，正在进行的脆弱钢筋混凝土建筑评估和缓解工作将带来独特的机会，对推力2中的加固进行研究。工程评估将量化现有(未翻新)建筑物造成的风险，包括可能的维修费用和住房损失，以及翻新(和拆除)工程解决方案的正面和负面影响。工程解决方案的流程和设计空间将通过半结构化访谈和调查征求妇女和居民的知识、优先事项和看法。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势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.