White House pushes for better finance strategies for disaster mitigation and resilience

The Obama Administration is trying to foster more projects to support disaster mitigation and community resilience.

The White House Council on Environmental Quality recently held a forum on innovative insurance, mortgage, tax, and finance-based strategies to further that goal. The National Institute of Building Sciences made a presentation based on its white paper, Developing Pre-Disaster Resilience Based on Public and Private Incentivization.

The document covers many approaches including tax credits, insurance premium reductions, resilience bonds, mortgage rate incentives, and layered incentive approaches. In addition, the paper recommends the development and adoption of appraisal and bond underwriting standards that recognize the value and benefits of building resilience.

One proposal calls for contractor-based financing, whereby a general contractor develops turnkey resilience programs for small buildings. Also recommended are building code programs that encourage local governments to adopt and enforce higher standards for resilience incentivized by federal and state investment with post-disaster recovery funding.

Long-span composite floor systems provide unique advantages in the construction of multi-family and hospitality facilities. This introductory course explains what composite deck is, how it works, what typical composite deck profiles look like and provides guidelines for using composite floor systems. This is a nano unit course.

Concrete buildings: Effective solutions for restorations and major repairs

Architectural concrete as we know it today was invented in the 19th century. It reached new heights in the U.S. after World War II when mid-century modernism was in vogue, following in the footsteps of a European aesthetic that expressed structure and permanent surfaces through this exposed material. Concrete was treated as a monolithic miracle, waterproof and structurally and visually versatile.

IMAGE_1_Norshield_high securitywindows_ and_doors

Norshield Products Fortify Critical NYC Infrastructure

New York City has two very large buildings dedicated to answering the 911 calls of its five boroughs. With more than 11 million emergency calls annually, it makes perfect sense. The second of these buildings, the Public Safety Answering Center II (PSAC II) is located on a nine-acre parcel of land in the Bronx. It’s an imposing 450,000 square-foot structure—a 240-foot-wide by 240-foot-tall cube. The gleaming aluminum cube risesthe equivalent of 24 stories from behind a grassy berm, projecting the unlikely impression that it might actually be floating. Like most visually striking structures, the building has drawn as much scorn as it has admiration.

Blast Hazard Mitigation: Building Openings for Greater Safety and Security

Microgrids can draw power from a variety of sources. Image: Courtesy of Jacobs Engineering

Microgrid | Jan 16, 2022

Resilience is what makes microgrids attractive as back-up energy controls

Jacobs is working with clients worldwide to ensure mission critical operations can withstand unexpected emergencies.

Total steel project performance

This instructor-led video course discusses actual project scenarios where collaborative steel joist and deck design have reduced total-project costs. In an era when incomplete structural drawings are a growing concern for our industry, the course reveals hidden costs and risks that can be avoided.

Resiliency | Oct 19, 2021

Achieving resiliency through integrated design

Planning for and responding to the effects of adverse shocks and stresses is typically what architects and engineers have always thought of as good standard design practices.